Let me begin by expressing my sincere gratitude to the members of Seoul National University who honor this event with their presence, including the chairman of the Seoul National University Senate, the members of the academic committee, the presidents of the alumni and faculty associations, faculty and staff, and student representatives. Our school used to invite former presidents and distinguished guests to this ceremony, but we decided to scale it down to a more modest and internal event this time. I count on your understanding.
It has already been four years since I was inaugurated as the 27th president of Seoul National University in this very room. At that time, I had mentioned how seriously I take this responsibility of leading our school for four years, a task and challenge the school community and government endowed upon me. I had pledged to continue Seoul National University’s proud tradition as Korea’s foremost educational institution that has stood at the frontline of the nation’s democratization and industrialization, and to lay the foundation for our school’s path toward a new future.
At the end of my tenure, I cannot help but look back on how much of that promise I have kept. As with all things in life, unexpected turns awaited us and forced us to change our plans. The most surprising turn was well beyond my imagination - the COVID-19 pandemic that put the world into chaos for the past three years. Continuing to run our schools as usual became impossible, and we had to make swift changes, such as switching all classes to an online format. Thanks to the tremendous efforts of all Seoul National University members, we could keep our libraries and student dormitories open and maintain most of our administrative functions. We established one-stop PCR testing facilities on campus that are able to confirm infections within two hours to reduce the possibility of collective infection. Despite many uncertainties and concerns, we resumed in-class lectures in the second half of 2021 and have now normalized most of our operations. Even before the pandemic, the long vacancy of the seat of the president had caused a prevailing state of crisis in our school, so I feel I can safely say that over the past four years, we have spent a considerable amount of energy and time to overcome multiple crises and bringing Seoul National University back on track.
A crisis, however, can also open doors to unexpected opportunities. Amid the pandemic, our university has improved steadily and earned various small and big achievements. Above all, I am particularly proud of the considerable progress in reorganizing our academic system in a way that respects students’ right to choose their career paths, a vision we have held and pursued from the very beginning of my term. We expanded the double major and minor systems for undergraduate students to promote convergence education and allow more room for graduate students to choose their advisors. We established the Academic Advising Center to provide guidance for students in various majors and have been making continuous steps to improve our curriculums through Inno-Edu 2031. Furthermore, utilizing the online education system developed during the pandemic, we introduced large-scale lectures that are held simultaneously online and offline and invited globally-renowned professors at overseas universities to teach online courses at our International Summer Program. These new attempts, as well as the improvements made in the course registration system, such as the introduction of the smart search service SNU Genie, enabled us to expand the availability of courses and the freedom of choice for our students. Last but not least, we established the Institute for Culture and Arts last year to give students more diverse experiences and opportunities for creative cultural activities.
Along with education, another essential function of a university is research. We launched the SNU 10-10 project to facilitate original research, and significantly increased the initial settlement fund so that new faculty members could quickly immerse themselves in research. We enlarged the project for establishing the school’s research infrastructure so that we could bring in ultra-expensive research equipment and contributed to strengthening national competitiveness by granting research institutes in the metropolitan area access to the equipment. When 46 educational research teams were chosen for the fourth stage of the BK21 project, by far the largest number of teams selected so far, we made good use of this big opportunity. We began operating the BK21 Graduate School Innovation Project Group to improve graduate-level research and education systems. In particular, we concentrated on providing stability to graduate students, our core human resources in research, by improving the RA/TA system. We also placed considerable weight on transferring our research achievements to society. We reorganized our support for entrepreneurship by establishing a start-up support team under the school’s main office to assist and promote the start-ups launched by our students and faculty. We have also been working consistently toward nurturing a start-up ecosystem on campus and in the surrounding neighborhood. We expect these efforts to strengthen Seoul National University’s contribution to creating jobs and social value. We have also founded the Institute for Future Strategy, which has been engaging in diverse activities to provide solutions to national challenges through interdisciplinary research. We envision this institute becoming the representative think tank of Korea and providing important insights and solutions to the problems faced by our country and humanity.
Last year, Seoul National University ranked 29th in the QS World University Rankings, entering the top 30 for the first time in history. Still, there is more to achieve before we can boast about being a world-leading university. In particular, today’s fourth industrial revolution era forces us to make fundamental changes in university-level education and research. Over the past two years, close to a hundred experts from within and outside the school community have participated in envisioning the future of Seoul National University and establishing a mid-to-long-term development plan that was officially ratified by the board of directors. A campus master plan was also established to prevent haphazard campus development, and we made our first steps towards a pedestrian-oriented campus by completing the plazas at the main gate and the lawn in front of the main administration building of the Gwanak campus. The first phase of our Siheung Campus was also completed, including the construction of a comprehensive education center and residential facilities. We have now embarked on the second phase of development which includes the construction of the Seoul National University Hospital and the Seoul National University Science Complex, both of which will become important assets of our school.
The university’s operations have also been brought safely back on track. Perhaps our most significant achievement is restoring Seoul National University’s tax exemption status, which remained a primary task after the school’s incorporation. Not only was it possible to save tens of billions of won in taxes, including property tax and acquisition tax every year, but it also became possible for us to develop our campus with a long-term perspective. Over the past four years, government contributions to our budget have increased by around 120 billion won, reaching 577.5 billion won in 2023. At the same time, the contributions to the SNU Development Fund reached 380 billion won in the last four years. Moreover, SNU Holdings, established two years ago to increase our financial income, is expected to enhance the school’s financial stability by revitalizing profitable businesses in the future.
Of course, there are also regrets about the goals I didn't achieve. For example, I was planning to expand welfare for students, staff and faculty alike, and also raise the remuneration of faculty. We made some progress, but internal and external factors limited our achievements in these areas despite my best efforts. The second regret is failing to implement an independent student admission system. Seoul National University’s admission policy greatly impacts the overall education of children in Korea, which means that designing our admission system must be done with extreme care under a firm goal. I had hoped to create a unique admission system that would allow us to invite students embodying our school’s idea of future leaders to our community while also contributing to the normalization of Korea’s high school education and acting as a ladder of opportunity for students who face financial difficulties. Unfortunately, various regulatory issues and social and political pressure have made it almost impossible to realize this hope. My third regret is the delay in the transfer of state assets, such as the transfer of the Research Forest, which was not completed at the time of our school’s incorporation. The Seoul National University Hospital’s funeral home was recently returned to us, opening a way to resolve the property issues, but many of these issues remain unresolved. Last but not least, I regret that we have not made more progress in improving the human rights situation on campus. We have implemented several changes toward this goal, such as improving the Human Rights Center’s system and services, introducing the ombudsperson system, and initiating and leading discussions about establishing an SNU Human Rights Charter. However, the fact is that we still have a long way to go. Many other things have probably been left amiss or insufficiently handled over the past four years. I can only blame myself in this regard and hope you will forgive me for my limited capacity.
It has been a great honor for me to lead Seoul National University for the past four years. Our accomplishments are entirely thanks to the members of Seoul National University, including our faculty and staff, who have worked with me throughout these years. Nothing could have been achieved without their outstanding abilities and dedicated efforts. In fact, only the accumulated efforts of successive executives and our members have allowed Seoul National University to reach the place we stand today. My slogan as a candidate in the presidential election four years ago was “Our Grand Tradition, A New Future.” I hope our actions over the past four years do not blemish Seoul National University’s grand tradition and have contributed, even if just a little, to laying the groundwork for our leap into the future. I look forward to the next executive team’s capable steps toward building our school’s new, grand future.
Thank you.
January 31, 2023
27th President of Seoul National University Se-Jung Oh