Ewha Womans University to Close College of Music and Art

After deciding to disassemble the college of human ecology in 2007, Ewha Womans University plans to combine its music and arts college into a new general arts college.

On September 19, Ewha Womans University announced a restructuring plan that reduces the number of its colleges from 15 to 13 and creates a new undergraduate college.

According to the plan, after disposing of the current music, art and design, physical education, and home ecology colleges, it will combine the departments into a general art college, health science college, and undergraduate college.

The general art college will include music, art, and design departments, and a dance department, which is currently in the physical education college. The college of nursing science, founded in 1955 and the first of its kind in Korea, will be included in the health science college with the department of exercise and sport sciences.

The disassembly of the home ecology college, which faced strong opposition from alumni, will proceed as planned. The cloth textile department will go to the general arts college, the food and nutrition department will go to the health sciences college, and the consumer science and human development departments will be integrated to the social sciences college.

In addition, the University will reduce the number of its colleges and the number of undergraduates by 10 percent, but will open a new undergraduate college. The undergraduate college, the first ever to be established in Korea, binds liberal arts and the social and natural sciences into a single college. In the early stages, the three colleges will be managed individually, but in the future the undergraduate college will take charge of all three colleges.

The head of the Ewha Womans University Planning Department, Park Tong-hee, said, “The focus of this restructuring plan is on combining similar majors and educating integrated experts, particularly in women-friendly areas where our university has comparative advantage.”

However, with strong opposition from the food and nutrition department, which is being integrated into the health science college, and expected confusion of the professors caused due to the changes in department and colleges, controversy and travail will continue until February of next year, when the details of the restructure plans, such as the placement of professors and creation of a new curriculum, are finalized.

ditto@donga.com