The Student Council's recent survey asked for students' opinions concerning how the university administration dealt with the clauses put forth by the Emergency Innovation Committee. The controversy of the survey's very significance derives from its seemingly biased questions that already imply President Suh as being at fault.
Pro: Not Right...and More to It
By Yoo Hee Kang
The conflict between the KAIST Faculty Committee and President Nam Pyo Suh has finally come to a direct confrontation. Since January 2011, the tragic events left KAIST in a disastrous state and the university's atmosphere has generally been dull. Nonetheless, according to the head of the Faculty Committee, Chong Min Kyung, KAIST's atmosphere cooled off considerably due to the creation of the Emergency Innovation Committee (EIC) which consists of ten professors, five appointed by President Suh and the other half appointed by the faculty association. The EIC, after meeting for about three months, made new policies for KAIST. Though the problems seemed to somehow reach a resolution, the Faculty Committee stated that among the 26 resolutions presented, 23 are not being kept; this ideation led to the aforementioned direct conflict between the Faculty Committee and President Suh. Starting on September 26, a questionnaire was created for the KAIST professors with the aim to bring President Suh down with clear bias. Adding fuel to the fire, this time the Undergraduate Student Council, Urinuri, put up a similarly biased questionnaire from October 4 to 9 for KAIST students. Consequently, affecting the questionnaire's legitimacy one way or another was unavoidable.
The little bits of information provided in each question did not seem right. For example, question four had words like "disadvantage", and "wrongful." With the use of such negative words, the questions clearly show bias. Without giving the audience any time to breathe, the questionnaire resumed its attack on President Suh, pungently and at length. It seemed that the first five questions were warm-up questions to hit the climax at question number six, which asked whether or not President Suh should resign. It was a rather embarrassing move on Urinuri's part to have questions with such a blatant objective of implying that many KAIST students want President Suh to resign. Not surprisingly, the six questions concoct a rather hideous picture portraying the defamation of Urinuri and the 732 students who participated in the survey. It should be questioned whether Urinuri, an organization expected to represent the thoughts and voice of all KAIST students, performed their duty successfully.
The questionnaire gave only a one-sided view of the problems KAIST is facing; the problems were considered from the students' perspective only. It is understandable that Urinuri wanted to bring a positive change for KAIST and its students, but it cannot be denied that wrong measures were taken. The questionnaire itself was a big failure in that it led many students to find themselves unconsciously nodding to the questions before them. Though we are aware of the problems, pointing them out in such a sneaky yet direct way is objectionable and simply wrong; there is no other word to describe it any better. It seems that Urinuri has turned KAIST students into the professors' puppets. Acknowledging well enough that the questionnaire made by professors was immature, Urinuri fell for it too: they proceeded to follow the path taken by the professors.
Coming this far, the veracity of information in the questionnaire is not the matter of importance, for it has already been tarnished. What really matters is that the questions, as the result of bias, come off as immature and emotional. How can the decision makers make sure that they are not affected by the already emotional and unrefined questionnaire? Research shows that questionnaires should not include words or attitudes that may trigger emotional senses, for this can cause a change in the outcome. Yet it looks as if the questions were written by people who have always been eager to stand up against President Suh. Through the questionnaire, what we have been carefully suppressing inside did finally blow up. But was that the correct way? Urinuri could have made a more rational approach. Professors are not flawless; they proved themselves so with the disappointing questionnaire. Why was there a need for Urinuri to repeat their mistake? Was it done intentionally with the sheer intent of kicking President Suh out of KAIST? Was it so important that they had to give up their sense of judgment for it? Before imploring for the students' right to speak, we should learn how to ask the opinions of others. Before questioning why professors would form a committee that leaves us students out, we should build our identity and stay strong first.
Very successful in delivering Urinuri's purpose, the questionnaire gave the feeling of reading an argumentative essay or a selfish advertisement; the message was clear enough. Due to the critical flaw, however, the questionnaire turned out to be unjust. If Urinuri meant to do this for KAIST and the students, they must have known that what they are doing could shake up the small amount of peace KAIST has found again. It is not to say that we should not face reality, but there could be a better way than this. Indeed, calmer mood did prevail during the past few months, but by the looks of where the questionnaire has taken us to, the peace at KAIST might be interrupted again. This time, sadly, we know what is coming ahead.
Con: The Results Speak For Themselves
By Geunhong Park
On October 29, more than four months after the activities of the Emergency Innovation Committee (EIC) finally came to an end, the Professor's Association (PA) called on President Nam Pyo Suh's resignation. Immediately after this significant announcement, however, the attitudes of the students were still varied to the point of confusion. While ARA's discussion boards were ablaze with arguments and counter-arguments, political statements and criticisms, there seemed to be no clear consensus among students.
The opinion poll put together by Urinuri over the next few days following the announcement offered a possibility of establishing a unified student opinion. However, not long into its opening and even long after its closure, the survey drew fire from some students citing the "biased" nature of its questions and its perceived "pro-resignation, anti-President" attitude. Many of those people also questioned the poll's reliability in representing the real attitudes of KAIST students, even accusing the Student Council of blatantly trying to incite unrest or manipulate students to turn against the administration.
This attitude might be understandable - especially for logically-minded KAIST students - given the considerable number of allegations listed in the questionnaire itself against the current university administration and its clear-cut answer choices (usually along the lines of "yes I agree", "no" and "other"). It is also worth considering that the last question asked - quite blatantly - whether the answerer agreed with President Suh's resignation as being necessary. From this it is probably true that the attitudes of the Student Council, no matter how restrained, trickled into the approach that the survey chose to take. The question is: did this bias affect the legitimacy of the poll in reflecting student opinion?
It is clear that this isn't the case. The importance of the PA announcement - at least by the reactions on online forums - was very clear even to those who later rejected the survey. Caught in the middle of a face-off between the professors and the administration, the student body quickly had to decide upon a unified course of action - whether to support the PA or to stand by the administration. Without the necessary time and resources to opt for a second Emergency Student Assembly, an opinion poll with widespread student participation seems to have been the only viable option for the Student Council. Thus the survey in itself was a necessary and laudable move by Urinuri to establish a line of action based on the wishes of the majority.
As to the content of the questionnaire itself, it may be said that the Student Council actually made a sizable effort to explain the extent of the controversy in their listing of the accusations made by the PA against the President and the administration. Even before the survey, Urinuri made sure to detail the issues at hand such as the organization of a university council and possible transgressions by members of the administration. Although this may have seemed like attempts at agitation to some, arguably this was also necessary in delineating the attitude of the PA and giving students a broader perspective on which to base their opinion.
It is true that many students did not completely agree with any of the options. However, arguing that the survey simply did not prove anything owing to its "subjective nature" seems especially hollow in light of the results. The survey included options (the option to choose "other") for the students mentioned before. Certainly such people would have utilized them to the full and written down their opinions in the spaces allotted. However, from the results it is clear that only 2 to at most 13% of all respondents did so. This is not to dismiss their importance. However, if one questions the authority of the survey itself by citing its "bias," one must keep in mind that most, if not all of the questions also had an unambiguous majority answering one clear way or the other. While many students also may not have participated in the survey, evidently the 732 people that did made their views obvious to any outside observer.
The KAIST Herald Staff
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