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송석언 총장 "디지털 혁신 인재 양성"
President Song addresses on “Digital Innovation Education” in 2021

<신 년 사> New Year’s Greetings

Dear JNU Family Members!

The Rat year of 2020 has dawned. I sincerely wish you the very best for a healthy and prosperous year of Taurus.

Let’s hope and welcome the new year in which the COVID-19 pandemic is gone, economy is quickly recovered, and our daily routines are returned fully for our social, economic and leisure activities.

The year of rat was overwhelmed by the COVID-19 spread, which threatened our lives, causing havoc to the social and economic stability; the year was abundant with numerous and diverse inconveniences, conflicts, and disastrous accidents. The university community was no exception to the COVID-19 adversities. All classes had to be run entirely untact.

The untact classes both teachers and students had experienced raised serious issues in terms of the possible compromise of the quality of teaching, lack of communications, and difficulties of providing the best classes and laboratories, and many other problems the untact education brought out.

The Corona contagion also provided many opportunities for us to overcome numerous adversities and challenges in sustaining the institutional growth and development.

In that sense, the year of rat has made us to recognize our abilities to overcome hardship, nevertheless finding the way to continue growing and developing our university.

To name just a few successes we had, we were able to secure funding (amounting to a sum of 23 billion krw) for 7-year graduate school development (63 million krw) and five research institute programs from the nationally highly competitive BK21 projects. These successes were attributable solely to the tireless efforts of our dedicated faculty and staff. A total grant of 23 billion krw represents a 264% increment over the previous funding of the 3-term BK21 project grants at 8.7 billion krw.

With lure of the hard-earned 4-term BK21 project grants, we have been able to achieve early successes in quality education, research laboratory safety and program implementations based on superior performance evaluations.

National University Development Project, University Innovation Project, LINC+Project and Global Teachers University Project provided over 20 billion krw for training superior personnel through the implementation of these grants.

In addition, we were successful in getting the international educational accreditation for 7 years in a row, excellence in GTU superior institutional rating for 4 years in a row, superior student counseling organization award, research laboratory safety management certification, and other institutional competitiveness ratings.

Industry Academy Cooperative Program being implemented toward the development of JNU’s mission for the future society has resulted in early successes.

A Jeju industry academy fusion complex was completed on the campus of Jeju Science Park at the cost of 22.5 billion krw to which the Department of Chemistry and Cosmetics, Department of Food and Nutrition, and Computer Engineering Majors have been relocated.

Again, these achievements have been made possible through the efforts and dedication of the JNU family members, for which I want to express sincere gratitude, especially to the faculty and staff of the university for their contributions.

Respected JNU Family Members!

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us how such event profoundly affects our future.

There are voices calling for how to prepare for the post COVID-19 epidemic. An institution prepared for the post-pandemic situation is likely to manage the changes, otherwise faces a grave risk of consequences. Based on our experience, we must prepare ourselves to the post Corona era in terms of education and personnel cultivation.

In order to realize the education of personnel in the digital age, blended learning and online lectures can be made satisfactory even under necessarily compromised conditions.

While meeting a variety of needs for remote site teaching by the Jeju area university education center, quality education for the students and online teaching capabilities for the instructors, we must establish the starting point for higher education reform in preparation for the future society.

We must not forget that how timely and well a university responds to the 4th industrial revolutionary trend distinguishes itself for its existence and reputation. To prepare the basis for our full engagement in the government funded digital innovation university projects and strengthen the future of the university competitiveness, we intend to train personnel in new technology areas through newly developed frontier academic departments and convergent/fusion programs.

To implement these programs, it is necessary for us to cooperate with other universities and research organizations as well as industries and the regional society to raise the utility of educational and research resources through the development of flexible curricula.

As the 2021 (3rd term) evaluations of institutional standard capabilities are important in ascertaining objective evaluations of the autonomous reform capacity and university competitiveness, we are prepared to conduct weekly checkup on curriculum contents and improvement, realization of the convergence education, improvement of teaching and learning methods, and re-evaluation of the quality of education. We will also attempt to lure the post LINC+Project in the second half of this year. .

This year we commemorate the 69th anniversary of the university and we are ready to provide a variety of projects in which the campus constituents, alumni and regional community participate for the 70th anniversary of the institution. A 70th anniversary editorial committee will be constituted to collect and write up the historical account to archive the university’s proud status.

Next year, we also look forward to the completion of the Industry Academy Cooperation Headquarter building with 7,123㎡ of space and the College of Pharmacy Hall with a total space of 3,000㎡ at the cost of 18.3 and 8.3 billion krw, respectively.

Dear JNU Family!

Due to the declining school age population, we expect 76,000 and 123,000 college entrance applicants this year and two years later, respectively. There will be increasing competition for not only superior students, but also freshman applicants, as the society intensifies its demand for institutional structural reform. There are challenges calling for our attention such as the declining school age population, 4th industrial revolutionary era, and post COVID-19 measures, and numerous other reforms.

To equip ourselves to be competitive and advance forward through reform and challenges, each of us must continue to grow, strengthening our determination and belief to be able to exercise our ingenuity when called for.

Let us remember that the COVID-19 hardship that suddenly downed on us last year, but together we overcame it, thanks to our campus constituents’ efforts, dedication, communication and cooperation.

I look forward to the new year of continuing communication and cooperation among our campus constituents, and expect to see us wisely exercising our potentials in overcoming any hardship that may be thrown upon us this year.

Finally, I wish you the very best for your family’s health and happiness in the new year.