Ability Is No.1 Criteria for Becoming SNU Professor

The opportunity to become a Seoul National University (SNU) professor is increasing. Competent brains who graduated from other universities are increasingly appointed to professorships at SNU, which did not even give a chance to non-SNU graduates in the past.

The share of professors from other universities or with degrees in different majors has been on the gradual increase recently, from 19.53 percent in 2000, 19.43 percent in 2001, 20.93 percent in 2002, 23.01 percent in 2003, 24.01 percent in 2004, to 24.61 percent in 2005 as of September 1.

The SNU announced that Professor Lee Jeong-hun, a 34-year-old professor whose Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree are different, began delivering her lecture. Professor Lee earned a degree in Astronomy in the U.S. and her PhD in Physics and Cosmology Theories from the University of Kansas after graduating from Korea University with a degree in math education.

Dr. Jeong Hae-myeong, who is in the same faculty and is set to begin lecturing next semester in 2006, also graduated from another university with different majors. Professor Jeong, who has a Physics degree from Paichai University, was selected based on one criteria of competence better than two other candidates.

Meanwhile, Professor Robert Ian McKay will become the first full-time foreign faculty starting the second semester in 2005 at SNU’s School of Computer Science. He majored in mathematics at Australian National University and earned a doctorate degree for Theory of Computation from Bristol University in Great Britain before working at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in Australia for nine years.

Se-Jin Jung mint4a@donga.com