| |  | |
| ▲ Logo of the Dotori project. Photo provided by Star:zari. |
Korea University (KU) has been notorious for providing the students with one of the worst conditions to dwell in. With only 11 percent of the students allowed into the KU dormitory, a lot of students struggle to find other places to sleep in. In search of a solution, both Korea University Student Association (KUSA), Star:zari, and KU have started on projects of their own.
Ever since KU failed to build a new dormitory, students have struggled to find places to stay during the semester. With the dormitory only able to accommodate 11 percent of the students, the remaining 89 percent have to search for alternatives, which oftentimes cause huge inconvenience and financial burden. Both Star:zari and KU administration have therefore come up with solutions which they hope will eventually alleviate the ongoing problem.
The school has recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Seoul and the Seongbuk-gu to work on a project called the “Boarding Certification” system. Once this system is put into action, which is expected to happen by the end of next year, the city will provide financial subsidy to boarding houses for remodeling while the boarding houses will promise not to increase housing costs for students. The project will continue until 2020, and KU will be the first university to experiment this project. This will possibly be adopted by other universities as well in the future if the project is proven effective.
Meanwhile, Star:zari has taken a different approach. Star:zari worked on a project called Dotori since August, which aimed to lead to the construction of a new dormitory. The Dotori Project continued until the first week of October and was mainly comprised of two activities—spreading awareness of the lack-of-dormitory issue by organizing autonomous events and coming to an agreement with the residents of the region through public hearing and conferences. Star:zari members have also consistently held interviews with school officials and the ward mayor of Seongbuk-gu.
KUSA’s campaign that aimed to spread awareness took different forms. Not only did they actively campaign online through Social Networking Systems by posting Card News and Webtoons related to the lack-of-dormitory issues, KUSA also set up booths for several days in order to alarm the students how serious the issue was for the students. KUSA also vigorously alerted the students by posting banners all over the campus.
Such movement did take place last year when Jieum was the reigning student association of KU. Unfortunately, it is difficult to say that their accomplishment was above expectation. The Department of Housing of Star:zari, however, insisted that the Dotori Project was different from last year’s movement in that “It not only focuses on oncampus issues, but also on off-campus issues by speaking with the ward mayor of the region and the residents.” This approach will be decisive since the most recent attempt to build a new dormitory came to a halt due to external pressures from the Seongbuk-gu residents.
Although the movement officially came to an end in the beginning of October, the Department of Housing commented that “the movement will go on until Star:zari’s term in office ends.” Lee Yun Ji (’14, School of Media and Communication) who is in charge of the Department, also commented that, “Although the main objective of the movement was to call for a construction of a new dormitory, we (the department) also wanted to let people outside KU know the struggles of the KU students.” Lee insisted that the consistent reminder of the issue will attract cooperation from the school and, eventually, the residents. Indeed, despite being less important for landlords, this issue has led the KU and the entire city to cooperate to look for a solution.
