[An Interview with President LEE Jang-Moo]

Q. Seoul National University currently employs 200 foreign professors including 100 adjunct and full-time professors. What are your future plans for hiring professors from abroad?

President LEE At overseas universities that are considered global, at least 30 percent of total professors are foreigners. The percentage is around 10 percent at Seoul National. We aim to become one of the top 10 universities in the world by 2025, and for that goal we will need to have 900 foreign professors of an estimated 3,000 total by then. If we maintain our current hiring rate, we expect to achieve 15 percent in the next several years and reach the 30 percent target early.

Q. Attracting quality professors from foreign countries will be costly.

President LEE  I've spoken about the most important role of a university with a slew of overseas university presidents, including Richard Levin of Yale, and I have reached the conclusion that drawing as many outstanding professors and students as possible is the answer. The school is supposed to hire remarkable professors and pay them hefty salaries. Quality professors are a driving force to lure quality students, and their outstanding research achievements can become valued intellectual assets. Earnings from those assets could boost the school's financial status, which will raise its external recognition, leading to more donations. So my top priority is investing in quality professors even when the school's financial conditions are troubling.

We invited Heisuke Hironaka, a former professor at Harvard and winner of the Fields Medal, the mathematics equivalent of the Nobel Prize, to a chair professorship early last year at an annual salary of $150,000. We also invited Paul J. Crutzen, a Nobel laureate in chemistry, who will start next year. Should the university be incorporated as planned, budget concerns will be mitigated to an extent.

Q. Students from China make up the largest portion of foreign students at Seoul National. Are you considering incentives to diversify the student body?

President LEE  We currently have students from around 80 countries, and 700 new full-time foreign students are set to enter next year. The number of foreign students has been rapidly growing in recent years. Since Seoul National is in Asia, the basis of our globalization agenda should be focused on Asia. India and China, which have a large pool of students, are very important to us. We have joined with private firms including Samsung Electronics to provide scholarships to IT students from those countries to help them find work after graduation. We intend to expand this program to the Americas, Africa and Europe.

Q. In May in Los Angeles the university opened 'SNU America', which will be responsible for collecting research material, supporting student exchange and cooperating with U.S. universities. Are there any plans to establish additional overseas offices or campuses?

President LEE  We are considering adding an office either in New York or Washington, D.C. to cover the eastern United States but haven't confirmed the schedule yet. I think we should have European offices in the near future. Regarding an overseas campus, I think we need to consider that in the longer term. Seoul National was invited last year to Dubai Knowledge Village, a global learning destination, but we declined the offer because it seemed too early. We may consider setting up a global campus complex for Asian countries, since some university presidents I have met expressed their intention to join.

Q. Do you have any overseas university in mind as a benchmarking target for the globalization drive?

President LEE  Global recognition of Seoul National has greatly improved in recent years, and designating a specific university as a benchmark for future progress doesn't seem necessary at this point. Seoul National was ranked in the top five in the Professional Ranking of World Universities by Ecole des Mines de Paris along with Harvard, Tokyo, Stanford and Waseda universities last month. We were 16th in 2008 and 32nd in 2007. Seoul National also ranked 50th in the World University Rankings by the Times of London last year, making that list for the first time.

Q. President Lee Myung-bak recently expressed his hope to see some universities select all of their students through the admissions officer system by the end of his term. As head of the nation's top university, do you think that's viable?

President LEE  Since the admissions officer system is meant to consider a variety of applicant abilities, it could involve some degree of subjectivity. That's why I think building credibility is critical. Priority considerations should include the applicants' potential. The system is not supposed to be mobilized simply to pick students with the top test scores and school records.

SNU was the first to reserve spots for students in rural areas and the disabled through our admissions officer system. We intend to recruit those who have immense potential but couldn't show superb performance because of obstacles they've had to face. I hope that universities use the admissions officer system with their social responsibility in mind. Once they gain credibility, then they can expand the system. How quickly will depend on each school's capacity - how long it has prepared and how much it has spent.

Q. University applicants with outstanding academic achievements increasingly prefer studying medicine over science and engineering due to the financial rewards given to doctors. What measures could help slow that trend?

President LEE  In my view, the number of excellent students opting for science and engineering is on the rise thanks to the sector's own efforts and government support over the past decade. The perception that science and engineering are crucial to boost national competitiveness is spreading, and the expanding scope of research in those fields has propelled its social responsibility. Although science and engineering require intensive study and massive expertise, students in those fields can take pride in playing a meaningful role in society. The government and corporations must work to publicize the importance of science and engineering and provide more scholarships so students can focus on their research.

Q. Seoul National earlier this year launched a 'social companion program' to provide advice to the jobless and elderly and students from lower-income households.

President LEE  We are living in an age based on knowledge, and the biggest merit of a knowledge-based society is that we can share as much knowledge as we like at little cost. Knowledge grows in proportion to how much you share it with others, and shared knowledge has a great impact on society and the world. Universities have the obligation to create knowledge and spread it through education, thus helping the underprivileged and resolving the long-term and short-term problems of humankind. The social companion program is meant to serve this purpose and has been well received by participants.

August 5, 2009
SNU PR Office