Due to the students’ growing concerns that the school was doing a poor job communicating with the student body, KAIST officials arranged a conference between student department heads and the school president. The conference was held at the Faculty Club on April 29.
The conference started off with Professor Seung Seob Lee, Dean of Student Affairs, giving an opening address. He mentioned that this event was meant to better the communication between the student body and the school, gather opinions and apply them to future policies, which would allow KAIST to rise to one of the top universities in the world.
President Nam Pyo Suh came to the stand afterwards and introduced what the school had been working on, namely collaborating with foreign universities and improving the education system. He mentioned that the new education system would be announced to the public on May 17 as part of KAIST Vision 2025. After the president’s address, lunch was served and the conference was adjourned for an hour.
HyunSoo Yoo, Student Head of the Department of Physics, took the stand and inquired the president on the hardships that he encountered as the president of KAIST. The president answered that going in the right direction, setting up goals, and especially understanding the problem were the most difficult things. He gave some examples on how he tried to understand the problem and the consequences that followed.
The next person to speak was Young-chul Kwak, President of the Undergraduate Student Union. He said that this event is one of the greatest grounds for communication between the school and the student body, and asked the president to incorporate the students’ opinions more in future policies. He also said that this crisis could become an opportunity to make KAIST a school with students who are happy with their lives.
HongKyung Kim, Student Head of the Department of Material Sciences and Engineering, continued the conference by saying that there should be more events where the school can gather the students’ opinions. He also mentioned that all of President Suh’s reforms include in some way policies from MIT, and asked President Suh not just to copy the policies from MIT but to modify them so that they fit better with KAIST. The president answered by saying that all his reforms were not based on those of MIT but that they were made exclusively for KAIST.
Before the next speaker came up to the stand, a professors pointed out that this event was meant for the students to speak out about the school, and that the president should allow more time for the students to speak more.
After the suggestion from the professor, HoJin Yoon, Student Head of the Department of Nuclear & Quantum Engineering pointed out that though the student quota had increased, the proper infrastructure hadn’t been made. Thus the students are suffering from shortages of dormitories and courses in the Department of Social Sciences. The president answered by saying that the school is constructing more academic buildings and will test a new education system, asking the students to be patient. However, he did not comment on the problems regarding the dormitories.
The next speaker was MinKyung Yoo from the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering. She talked about the lack of human interaction between the students and that both monetary and spatial support was insufficient for club and department activities. She mentioned that students could learn what it is to be part of society because club activities provide not only entertainment but also human interaction. However, she pointed out that though there are 70 clubs and 18 departments in KAIST, there are only 40 clubrooms and that some departments did not even have their own department rooms. She went on to say that though the school provides financial support for department activities, some students don’t pay their fair share of department fees, making planning for department activities hard. The Dean of Student Affairs responded by saying that he is trying hard to increase club space and that he would consider raising the club funding by two times, possibly thrice the current amount.
The final speaker for the conference was YongSoo Lee from the Department of Electrical Engineering. He pointed out the communication problem between the school and the student body and suggested the president to open up a Twitter or Facebook account and post new policies. This will let the students receive information as they are updated directly from the school and not information from third-party newspapers. He also said that due to regulations penalizing students who stay after their eighth semester, students could not take lectures that would jeopardize their graduation in eight semesters. He also asked the school to share the information about students who are in their third semester so that the department could care for these students more effectively. Currently, the students would write their personal information on a sheet of paper and hand it in to the student head, which is time consuming. If a student didn’t send in the information, the department has no way of knowing and consequently the student would be excluded from department activities. The Dean of Student Affairs answered by saying that the school is considering to implement pass-or-fail courses to reduce pressure on the students. Also, instead of the students choosing their major in their third semester, the school is considering to let students choose their majors in their second semester and make the changing of majors less painful.
Afterwards, the president left for another appointment and the student heads and the Dean arranged a date for further talks. Although the event faced some problems in the process and there was not enough time for deeper discussion, this will allow for better, more effective ways of communication at future events.