Pukyong National University

"The government is making universities weak" 8-year university president, telling hard truths
The Busan Ilbo interviewed with former PKNU President Kim Young-seup ... "He raised the status of PKNU even more"

On the 15, September, the Busan Ilbo published an interview as a top box article on social media (page 10) with former Pukyong National University president, Kim Young-seup, who recently resigned from university.

The title was “The government is making universities weak,” and the subtitle was ‘Kim Young-seup, former president of PKNU, tells hard truths.’

On the 2, September, former President Kim, who had left the post of President of Pukyong National University where he worked for eight years, expressed in this interview openly the regrets about the government's university policy that he felt while serving as president.

In this article, he said, “When the government comes up with an evaluation index, universities get busy to meet those standards to get financial support from the government,” he added, “It is said that the government protects the university, but rather, it is making universities fragile habitus that cannot survive without taking medicine every day.

During his tenure, former President Kim served as the chairman of the National and Public Universities Presidents' Council, etc., and experienced the policy scene of higher education vividly while striving for the development of national and public universities.

The article added, “The reason former President Kim’s voice is empowering is because of the total weight and depth of what he has seen, heard, and experienced while serving as the president of the National University for eight years, but also because other university presidents also rap out the same voices."
 
Former President Kim continued, “If autonomy is limited as it is now, there only come out of universities with lines of the same color without features.”

What kind of appraisal has former President Kim's past eight years been receiving from the media?

On this day, an article in the Busan Ilbo said, "The former President Kim is evaluated to have raised the status of Pukyong National University for eight years."

The article said, “Dragon Valley, an industry-university-research innovation campus that opened the entire Yongdang campus to 400 companies, has made a great contribution to the creation of the start-up ecological system.”

The article continued, “The attraction of the World Fisheries University, which is conducting a demonstration project jointly with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), is a great achievement during Mr. Kim’s tenure. Recently, Pukyong National University is putting the final touches on establishing the College of Medical Radiology in the in the Southerneast Area Radiology Medical & Science Industrial Complex' in Jangan-eup, Gijang-gun, Busan.

What topic did COVID-19 bring to universities?

In the interview, former president Kim emphasized academic originality, saying, “Contents are life in professor lectures released online.”

In this regard, he also said in interviews with other media, “In public lectures, the content should be excellent. If many professors have been teaching exclusively through absolute time and space, then the COVID-19 has changed it to an open system.”

He said, “I think, what I always thought should be changed, actually became an opportunity to change rapidly. I think these things have brought positive changes.” <Pukyong Today>