SNU engineering college envisions bigger picture

One stops and asks any student passing by at the college’s campus. “Did you receive the perfect score at the College Scholastic Ability Test?” The student replies “yes.” What about your colleague? “He missed just one question.” This is the image of Seoul National University as presented on KBS TV’s entertainment show "One Night, Two Days." This is the nation’s top university where most gifted students assemble, and an institution that even many of top-ranked students at high schools are not admitted. However, the university is lagging behind in international competiveness. According to world university rankings in Times Higher Education of the U.K. last year, SNU ranked 50th. It is lagging behind not only Harvard or MIT in the U.S. but also Hong Kong University or Australian National University.

SNU is a place that "transforms most talented students into dull persons." Being complacent with its reputation as the top university in Korea, it has lived like a "frog in the well" rather than embracing changes. There is also joke that SNU has 2,000 presidents. This is self-deriding humor suggesting that because all of more than 2,000 faculty members at the university are so stubborn and it is impossible to reform. Many SNU professors have said, “While the nation and young Koreans are struggling, colleague professors are too negligent, which is shame on us.”

SNU’s College of Engineering has released the “2015 White Paper – Advancing from a Good University into Outstanding University.” The White Paper reveals a sense of reflection that if it is to be metaphorically described, SNU’s College of Engineering was a batter who hit a bunt, advanced to the first base, and got satisfied. In the world of academia, only a "grand slam" is remembered. We need a culture in which we take on challenge even for a low chance to succeed. It means that while focusing on making short-term achievements, and meeting the required number of research papers, the school failed to make outstanding achievements. It also includes self-criticism that even highest-caliber professors are not employed when openings are not available, and when reviewing the eligibility for tenure, decision is significantly influenced by a sense of sympathy among professors.

The engineering college, which seeks to renew its commitment by releasing a White Paper for the first time in 24 years, has a glimmer of hope. More worrisome are the college of humanities and the college of social sciences, which do not hesitate to simply depend on theories from overseas or give the same old lectures based on aged notebooks year after year. In his congratulatory speech at SNU’s entrance ceremony this year, Prof. Kim Nan-do said, “You are not victors but debtors,” and urged, “Please make utmost efforts to expand your knowledge and intellectuality, rather than your resume, and to ensure the future of this nation, rather than well-paid jobs.” Not only freshmen but also the entire members of the university should keep his words in mind.

ysshin@donga.com