Yeom Jaeho, the president of KU has tried to reform the administrative system of KU. In the talk with staffs in June, Yeom stated that “The tasks assigned to academic affairs departments of each college will be downsized, and newly established academic affairs headquarters of each campus will handle those tasks.”

As said in the talk, Yeom had originally planned to establish academic affairs headquarters of Natural Science and Technology campus and Liberal Arts and Social Science campus which deal with affairs typical in all colleges like grades, registration, and graduation. Under the plan, other tasks such as course-related notices will be assigned to administrative officials hired in offices of each department.

 

“Most issues such as graduation and grades will be transferred to the academic headquarters,” said an official in the academic affairs department of Business School on July 28. According to him, only distinctive services of each college such as Career Development Center (CDC) and exchange student program of Business School or overseas language programs in College of Liberal Arts would be continued to be offered by the academic affairs departments. Students wanting to gain information about other typical affairs would have to “look for personnel in charge of their departments who are working in the headquarters,” said the official.

 

Nonetheless, the university’s policy seems to have been either altered or slowed down. On August 5, Lee Hong Jae, an official in the academic affairs headquarter of Liberal Arts and Social Science campus, stated that students will not have to individually visit the headquarters. The academic affairs headquarter was officially launched on September 1. However, it will only play a role as an interagency, linking different departments and the president of KU. Information and issues of different departments will be gathered and conveyed to the president.

 

On August 6, the official in the academic affairs department of Business School also confirmed the change in the university's plan. “Considering that only a small number of officials have moved to the headquarters, it seems to be difficult for the academic affairs headquarters to perform various tasks starting in September, as originally planned,” he said. In students’ point of view, there will be no discernible change, at least for a while.

 

Most students are little concerned about reforms in administrative system aimed at improving efficiency of work processing. Nonetheless, these reforms actually have a significant impact on students’ everyday life, as places where they visit for help could have changed, and could change in future. Changes caused by the reform could have more extensive for students of independent schools such as the School of Media and Communication, School of Interdisciplinary Studies, and Division of International Studies, or a college with a single department such as Business School. These students have not had department offices, and had to visit the academic affairs department for every administrative issue.

 

Moreover, for student associations of each college which have cooperated or negotiated with the academic affairs departments, the reform can mean a substantial change. In the regular meetings of the Central Steering Committee, the members have continued to express concerns about the abrupt change. Song Wookeun (’12, School of Interdisciplinary Studies), the president of the department’s student association, said, “Due to the integration, student leaders will have to visit the headquarters every time, which will make cooperation and negotiation more difficult.”

 

What is more, students were not provided with any details of the reform. Korea University Student Association (KUSA) has made efforts to communicate with the university during the procedure of reform. However, officials in the university headquarter refused to share the information about the progress, claiming that an administrative reform is not an issue students can engage in. According to the vice president of KUSA Kang Minku (’12, College of Medicine), KUSA sent five letters requesting more information and communication about the reform, but the university’s viewpoint on the issue remained unchanged.

 

“We regret that there was not a democratic process regarding the issue,” said Kang. The university did not even notify when the reform would be completed. “The university claimed that the reform would not start in July, but we got to know that the actual process had already started in mid-July,” he added.

Many students have criticized the unilateral and closed-door attitude of the university after the talk with the president. The university promised to communicate with students, but students’ skepticism toward one-sided policy changes emerged again due to the abrupt reform. “The university should have revealed the process, listening to different perspectives on the issue,” Kang said.