Dear faculty and staff members

 

A new year has arrived. I hope the near year is full of peace and good luck and I wish all the things go well for you and your family.

 

On this very starting moment, I realize all the changes around our university are getting accelerated.

 

The first change is the university evaluation for restructuring by Ministry of Education that we once had last year. The ministry will force universities to reduce their number of students not only by law but also by financially influencing policies. They will induce reduction of 160,000 enrollments through 3 step restructuring plan from 2014 to 2022.

 

Secondly, we have fixed the tuition for 7 years since 2010 and will keep it fixed until next year. CHU¡¯s tuition is almost the lowest in Korea and the sum of scholarships given to the students takes up to 50 % of the total tuition income, which makes the government¡¯s ¡®half-tuition¡¯ policy realized in CHU. However, raising tuition would not be possible in the future.

 

Those factors will squeeze universities financially. Eventually universities without competitive edge will end up closing and thus, give hard time to their employees. It is our own responsibility to recognize the changes and get prepared for the future.

 

All the faculty and staff members of CHU have been united to prepare for these challenges successfully. I could have witnessed CHU¡¯s potential and self-surviving competence through all the challenges in and out of the university during past years. I saw your capability glowing in the shadow of difficulties, which assured me of confidence that we can overcome any challenges of restructuring or enrollment reduction.

 

We should be doing our best to fulfill our role for the local and global community.

 

First, CHU was named as the first university in Korea that has flexible 2+4 term system 2 years ago. Now, it is time for each department to get specialized based on this system. For example, CHU International School of Tourism & Hospitality is working on exchanges with world prestigious universities as SSTH, an affiliation of the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne or Chinese Nankai University. The school is also improving the capability by academic exchange with national and international scholars in Free International City Forum.

 

On the other hand, School of Nursing, often referred as the best practice-based training facility in Korea, has developed a curriculum based on PBL, a teaching strategy based on problem solving, and promoted it to other universities and hospitals in and out of Korea. It also organizes an international PBL society with international scholars from Australia, US, Japan, China, Hong Kong, and Vietnam. Its affiliates such as Halla/ New Castle PBL Center or Halla/ Stonybrook Emergency Medicine Education Center have contributed to CHU¡¯s global competencies in nursing and caring. This achievement allowed CHU to be selected as a leading university of international cooperation by Ministry of Education and at the same time as executing institute of KOICA ODA project and had the privilege to support Hue National University, Vietnam to develop their curriculum. We should remember that it is our responsibility as higher education professionals not to be satisfied the previous achievements but to keep it up all together.

 

Recently, CHU schools are trying to get more specialized. One of them, for example, is the School of Equine Science, which aspires to be the best institute in Asia that produces equine industry professionals. Located in Jeju, which has 800 year old history of equine industry and specially named as Equine Industrial Zone by the government in 2014, CHU School of Equine Science has been selected by government as a training institution for equine industry professionals and now is expecting the completion of the horse-riding training facility on the university farm in Cheonaoreum. I hope the facility will be used to train students, produce and train riding horses and to foster researches on equine industry as 6^th industry.

 

Many universities are now working on Information Technology. CHU School of IT, who suffered for its regional limitation of Jeju which lacks IT infrastructure, is now striving to get specialized in 3D animation and design, scanning and printing. It is also trying convergent technology and studies such as Drone, and intelligent distribution management based on IoT (Internet of Things), which is an upgraded version of RFID that we had sponsored by Ministry of Labor and HRDKorea before. This is a highly inspiring moment for CHU to move forward to IT centered future.

 

After all the highly noticeable accomplishments, we are running out of time to talk about the achievements that School of Social Welfare or Arts made. I cannot miss that CHU is the undefeatable top among Korean junior colleges especially in dispatching students working overseas or attracting foreign students. It is also our job to cultivate not only Korean students by dispatching them world widely, but also foreign students, all of whom will serve as global leaders.

 

In preparation for restructuring this year, we should put more efforts to enhance academy industry co-op based on our previous achievements. Universities are evolving to a compound yet contradictory structure of two big streams, which consist of a mega university and a micro college. We must keep up with the mainstream and lead the transformation and at the same time find out our own strategies to progress.

 

All of our endeavors are not only our duty to serve the local community and global village but also our job to contribute human culture.

 

In 2016, let¡¯s overcome those impending challenges and gladly take the responsibility as an important member of the local and global village.

 

I wish all goes well with your family again, and let¡¯s move on with hope and pride.

 

Thank you

 

In the new year¡¯s morning, 2016

 

Cheju Halla University President Kim, Seong - Hun