CNU Preview 2008
Waiting for the Day with a Feeling of Expectancy

By Rhy Seung-hyi, Tribune Reporter
Kim Na-ri, Tribune Reporter
Kim Ji-eun, Tribune Reporter 

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◎ New Student Card

  CNU will implement multifunctional smart cards for students this year. The cards will replace student cards that only functioned as an ID, and will allow the school to control entrance and exit from facilities around campus and to check class attendance electronically. It also permits students to use various services like the library lending service more conveniently by using them. Students will also be able to purchase books, food and drinks on campus and to use public transportation off campus by using these cards as cash, check, debit or transportation cards.

◎ The 17th President Election

  The 17th president election of CNU will be held in May. In this election, an existing direct election system will be changed into a mixed-election system with direct and indirect votes in order to control potentially agitating campaigns and to check random candidacy. This will be the first election where the CNU Presidential Candidate Selection will nominate official candidates for president. It is said that eight candidates will run for election to become the next CNU president.

◎ Child Care Center

  CNU members will be able to use a new child care service during the day time while they are working from February, 2008. The Child Care Center has been founded by mutual agreement in which CNU provides the site for the center and Gwanju Bank offers financial support. The center will be located in front of the College of Human Ecology and will be a two-story building and can accommodate 100 children. The staff of CNU and Gwangju Bank and citizens can use it.

◎ Law School

  All the members of CNU, especially in the College of Law, have currently made an effort to obtain law school permits starting last year. 41 universities in Korea that have a College of Law submitted an application to establish a law school, and among them, four universities, including CNU, are located in Jeolla Province area. The Ministry of Education will officially announce preparatory universities for law schools on January and finally, ten universities will be selected by August.

◎ BTL Dormitory

  The Built-Transfer-Lease (BTL) project was introduced into CNU as a countermeasure for a financial deficit last year. The building of a new dormitory that will be opened in August, 2008 will be the first model of the BTL project. The new dormitory will be operated by a private organization that invested its capital to build the facility. Those students who have been selected for the new dormitory will move into this dormitory for the second semester of 2008. This dormitory will be a studio apartment that has ultra-modern facilities such as a restaurant, a bank, a pharmacy, a bookstore and a sports center and can accommodate up to 3,146 students. 

◎ New Education and Administration System

  Our university has established its unified information system, called “Arsam” which means the foundation of knowledge in Korean, for efficiently handling education and administration since 2005. Every information system that was maintained independently in different parts of our university will be set up this year. It will provide advanced technical support to CNU’s education, investigation and administration. This system enables the building of the B-learning system and also to introduce Information Technology Service Management and Information Technology Architecture in order to improve IT services and to manage information systems or resources more efficiently.

◎ New Rules on Tuition Fee Increase and Scholarships

  The administration of CNU announced at the end of 2007 that tuition fees would increase by different amounts depending on college this year in order to decrease unfairness of students who belong to colleges with a relatively smaller budget. The tuition fees of every college were equally raised until last year. CNU will also operate a scholarship system to offer financial aid to students from low-income families from the first semester of this year. The proportion of such students who receive scholarships will be raised and it shall create new scholarships that should pay only half of university supporting association fees.

◎ Medical College Campus Move

  Recently CNU presented documents to the Ministry of Education for a plan to move the College of Medicine campus into Hwasun-gun. The campus will move into there after seven or eight years, but clinical fields like medical students’ clinical training will still remain at CNU Hospital located on the Hak-dong campus in Gwangju. Meanwhile, the CNU Dental Clinic will open on the Yongbong campus in August and its building will be located near the soon to be finished CNU arboretum.


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◎ The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games

  The 2008 Summer Olympic Games that is the biggest festival of sports in the world will be held at Beijing National Stadium in Beijing, China from August 8, 2008. The slogan for the Olympic Games is "One World, One Dream”, which calls on the world to unite in the Olympic spirit. As Fuwa, the official mascots of the games, carry their invitation to Beijing to people all over the world, the Chinese government has promoted the games to highlight the high potential of China on the world stage. China is expected to emerge as one of the largest economy in the world through hosting 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. 

◎ The International Year of Planet Earth

  On December 22, 2005, the United Nations General Assembly (UN) declared that 2008 would be the International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE) and the IYPE project would proceed from 2007 to 2009. The UN, which witnessed the tsunami affect many countries in Southeast Asia in December, 2004, decided to capture people’s imagination with the knowledge about our planet and to reconsider the current studies of the Earth that was conducted in order to prevent the effects of natural disasters and to make scientists’ research results be applicable to actual policies for making the Earth healthier and safer. 

◎ Korea’s First Astronaut, Ko San and Naro Space Center

  Korea will take the first step towards the success of space exploration. The first Korean astronaut, Ko San, will make a trip to the International Space Station (ISS) on the Russian Soyuz rocket, TMA-12, on April 8, 2008. He will stay at the ISS and conduct several experiments on some scientific tests for 10 days and return to the Earth on April 19. In addition, Naro Space Center (NSC) located in Goheung-gun is going to be operational in June, 2008. The NSC will launch the Science and Technology Satellite 2, and then Korea will be the 9th Nation in the World that has successfully launched satellites. 

◎ Family Relation Registration

  The Registration Law of Family Relation will be enforced from 2008, abolishing the Hoju (head of the family) system that was maintained for about a century. Under the new law, family relation register will replace the past family register, and each family member will be separated through an individual register. It allows adoptive parents to register their adoptive children as their real children because those children can choose to follow their family name between the father’s surname and the mother’s. The law is expected to enhance Korean women’s rights and to bring about more gender equity.