Dear Seoul National University faculty and students, alumni, and everyone who is always with Seoul National University. Today, Seoul National University marks the 75th anniversary of its opening.

Looking back, the past 75 years at Seoul National University have been a time of will and achievement, during which we have overcome adversity. In particular, this year marks the tenth anniversary of our incorporation, and it is also a meaningful time to objectively assess the achievements of the past ten years and prepare for the future.

Ten years ago, the transition of Seoul National University to a national university corporation represented a decision to restore university autonomy so as to plan for the future and for change itself despite many expected difficulties. In the past ten years, Seoul National University has made progress in many areas, but at the same time, there are still many changes to be surmounted. Last September, we published a white paper on the tenth anniversary of our incorporation to record this part of our history and looked back on the past.

There have been several notable changes. Above all, please know that balanced development of various academic fields has taken place since our incorporation. Not only is Seoul National University’s status continuing to rise in the world, as is our university ranking, but unlike in the past, when only some majors, including those in technology and the sciences, led this rise, nearly all academic fields have now achieved synergy. In the first ten years after incorporation, Seoul National University has made the world’s strongest leap forward and is now continuing its plans with full support to become a top-tier university.

Second, after incorporation, the breadth and depth of the internationalization of Seoul National University have changed. One example is the success of Seoul National University’s unique internationalization method, known as “The World in SNU and SNU in the World” strategy. Literally, the world has come to Seoul National University and Seoul National University has entered various parts of the world. Now, students at Seoul National University can engage in various academic, cultural, and social experiences all around the world; they can attend lectures given by eminent local professors and can undertake intensive language education. We have built a creative and immersive education program of internationalization that is rare among the world’s other leading universities. Although this program is temporarily offered only online due to COVID-19, we will continue to reinforce our internationalization efforts after the recovery.

Third, we have established an institutional foundation for integrated financial management. Despite growing uncertainties in government funding since our incorporation, Seoul National University’s total fiscal size in 2020 reached 1.5 trillion won, up about 80% from 2011 when incorporation was implemented. It is not just growing in size. Tuition dependence has been steadily decreasing, and the scholarship benefit rate has exceeded 50%, opening the era of practical half-price tuition. SNU Holdings, a holding company, was established this year to revitalize university start-ups, which will lead to a virtuous cycle of research and finance in the long run.

There have been many positive changes since incorporation and, as is not uncommon, some shortcomings. Seoul National University humbly acknowledges these inadequacies, and we will endeavor to improve in these areas. A typical example is the rigidity in some of our education and research organizations. Much of the traditional division of departments is maintained, and there is still a considerable way to go before research institutes can break down boundaries, establish exchanges, and achieve the best synergy. In particular, a flexible education system is essential to foster convergence talents, which are desperately needed in the Fourth Industrial Revolution and post-COVID-19 era. To cope with this, we are already promoting improvements to our education system as part of the effort to revitalize multi-major convergence education.

Another area that requires continuous effort is ‘publicity’. Seoul National University is the university that receives the most support from the government and from society. It is time for a cool-headed self-inspection to continue the proud history that has contributed to our national development by cultivating leaders of industrialization and democratization in the past. We need constant inspections and continuing efforts to ascertain whether our education and research serve the interests of the country and society and contribute to overcoming social polarization, which is a global task, and whether the talented graduates we cultivate are those who strive to expand fairness and social integration rather than promote social division for private interests.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, the role and meaning of universities in society and what society requires from universities have changed significantly. It would be natural to give comfort and encouragement to students who have not met face-to-face on campus over the past year and a half, but I do not think we should stay here. Recent experiences have given universities some fundamental enlightenment and new missions, demonstrating that the precise and deep knowledge created by universities saves lives and revives society. With the popularization of knowledge, increasingly more people are asking what the university needs to do, but the experience of the past two years once again reminds us that the production of strict and deep knowledge is the first mission that universities should take seriously. It would have been impossible without the most rigorous and in-depth knowledge created by universities to develop methods to test, track, and treat confirmed patients and to develop the new vaccines, to predict changes in the near future resulting in all of the national policies to prepare for them, and to devise countless specific methods to deal with the changes in society caused by the pandemic.

The university is also responsible for providing its members as well as our community, our nation, and the world with the capacity and confidence for recovery. As with all types of disasters, the ultimate recovery is in confidence and resilience, with the belief that we can overcome this difficulty and do better than before. The ability actually to achieve such a recovery must also be supported. Universities should take the lead in finding answers to various questions, such as what real and emotional difficulties humanity will face due to the global pandemic, what is necessary to overcome these challenges, and how to provide the capabilities to support the restoration.

The third mission is to ensure that our students who have experienced college life only off campus are not the “unlucky last generation of the past era” but the “pioneering generation who was the first to experience the coming era.” Many of the changes we have faced since the pandemic started have actually been with us for a long time. Non-face-to-face lectures are typical. We have long had technology for such lectures, but it was only after the pandemic that they became widely used. The generation who experiences real-life changes for the first time is bound to have numerous difficulties, but an experience that no one has ever had before can become an asset for such a generation in the future. Those who were the first to discover the New World suffered from endemic diseases, but their names are forever recorded as pioneers. The university is responsible for helping our students make these difficult experiences assets in the new era and ensuring that they remain as pioneers.

I would like to express my respect and gratitude to all university members who are firmly immersed in their studies, research, and duties amid these unprecedented difficulties. I am also deeply grateful to our alumni and to everyone who gives us their unwavering affection. Please look back on the past on the 75th anniversary of the opening of Seoul National University; objectively evaluate the changes that have occurred over the past ten years since our incorporation and give us both the praise and the reprimands we deserve. All members of Seoul National University will do their best to move forward toward the future.

Oct 14, 2021.
President of Seoul National University Se-Jung Oh