Last month, Dr. Bertil Andersson, President of Nanyang Technological University (NTU), visited Korea for the annual President’s Advisory Council (PAC) and International Presidential Forum (IPF). During his visit, he also gave a special lecture open to all KAIST members including professors, students, and staff. The KAIST Herald was given a special opportunity to meet with President Andersson.

NTU is considered the fastest rising universities in the global top 50 this year. What can you attribute to such a tremendous jump?
Not just NTU but Singapore as a country has in the last five to six years started to invest in research at a much larger scale than it has done before. With more funding, more research is conducted and more papers are published. In addition, we are ranked 5th in the world when it comes to international faculty, since we employ a lot of good scientists from universities around the world like California Institute of Technology in the U.S. and Imperial College in the U.K. This helps improve our international profile, which helps increase our reputation as a school. Another key factor is that we work closely with industries. Companies like Siemens, Rolls-Royce, and Airbus have labs on our campus. In addition to the merits of our faculty, we have become highly competitive as a university in Asia and attract the top students from Singapore. Another project in the works is collaboration with Imperial College to open a medical school in Singapore.

KAIST’s foreign faculty and international student count has grown drastically over the last ten years as well. However, there appears to be a cultural barrier between the native Koreans and foreigners. With NTU’s international profile (about 70% international faculty and a large student population from overseas), does it also face a similar problem?
When it comes to faculty, I believe that they mix quite well amongst themselves but when it comes to the students, I feel that there is also a similar barrier. For example, there are three large groups: the students from China keep to themselves, the students from India keep to themselves, and the students from Singapore keep to themselves. We make an effort during the freshman orientation to mix the different groups together. We really try to work for integration with student union activities on campus, but it’s difficult. Even in Sweden, where I come from, you will observe a similar pattern where there might be a big group of Germans who stick together, and so on.

In Korea, the relationship between a teacher and a student is very formal and teachers are viewed as authority figures. Unfortunately, students, out of embarrassment, rarely approach their professors to ask questions whether it is related to coursework or not, and it seems taboo to “bother” them with personal matters. How would you evaluate the relationship between the faculty and students?
NTU has a residential campus with a student population of 11000, soon to grow to 15000, and over 1000 faculty members who live on campus as well.
There are many opportunities for students and faculty to meet each other on campus during their free time. At NTU, we try to change the education attitude since we want professors to serve as mentors rather than preachers or lecturers. We try to eliminate large class sizes to make the role of the professor like a mentor instead of a professor standing on a pedestal. If you go to an American university, the students and teachers are much more mixed and friendlier whereas in Asia, there seems to be too much respect. I believe that there should be respect for the knowledge, not respect for the person.

For the remainder of your term, how do you plan on continuing the improvement of your school?
With three and a half years left, there is much going on and much to be done. Right now, there are many plans for construction for new facilities. As mentioned before, the medical school is going to be very important in the near future. Also, we are going to build nine new residence halls to accommodate our increased student population. In addition, we are planning on building two new “learning houses” which will be interactive places where students can sit with computers and discuss projects with each other, our idea of “learning for the 21st century.” In addition, I would like to start a new school for earth and environmental sciences, since I believe the deteriorating environment is one of the global challenges, and I would like students to have a chance to do research with faculty that we have recruited in this field.
Over the next few years, I want to make changes that would make the administration be less controlling since we should be providing services to the students, not forcing or bossing them around. Students should be more engaged. For example, they should have first-hand experiences running coffee shops, bookstores, and restaurants on campus. When I was the president of a Swedish university, the chemical engineering students would brew the beer themselves while the business major students would sell it at the on-campus brewery. These kinds of experiences can’t be taught in a classroom. To apply their knowledge to the real world, engineering students could provide consulting services to local companies while earning money and experience. In modern universities, you should give the students the opportunity to take these responsibilities and experience it because this is a very efficient way of learning. This is real learning.