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Euh Yoon-dae, the incumbent president of Korea University, was on Monday disqualified from seeking a second term after more than half of some 900 professors voted to drop him from a list of finalists. The country¡¯s most prominent CEO-style university president, Euh was one of three disqualified from among nine candidates.
During his four-year tenure, Euh achieved considerable results in improving Korea University and boosting its international status. It is the only private Korean university to rank among the top 200 universities in the world according to the Times of London, at 184 in 2005 and 150 this year. The school's Business Administration College and Graduate School of Business Administration got international approval from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACBS-International). Euh¡¯s top priority in university management was on globalization, with the school sending 1,000 students to twinned overseas universities every year. W350 billion (US$1=W937) in development funds flowed into the university in the past four years. The achievements shamed rival institutes, which implicitly benchmarked Korea University under Euh Yoon-dae.
But the school¡¯s professors wanted rid of him. Not a few chafed at his demand that they lecture in English, while others complained of favoritism for certain faculties, the College of Business Administration not least among them. Some argued that you cannot run a university like a business. What is for sure is that his reforms required painful changes.
Reforming a university means reforming faculty. It is not so much the students who pass through its gates but the academics who guide them that determine the quality of an institution. Korea University¡¯s academics, troubled by the reforms Euh executed, rose against him. It shows again how difficult it is here for a university president to reform the people who have the right to elect him.
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