September and October are known to us as the festive season. This is the same for CBNU. This year, because of the Sewol accident, almost every university postponed their festival dates for the second semester. University festivals, which have a deep-rooted tradition and history, have various characteristics depending on the timing. In the 21st century, university festivals have heard voices of concern that festivals are losing their identities.  According to this, CBT sheds new light on the problems of the current university festivals. -Ed.

  University festivals are normally called ‘Daedong-je’, and this name was started in the 1960s. In the 1960s and 70s, university festivals were held just like simple events, which were mainly the culture only students could enjoy. At the beginning of the 80s, university festivals were changed characteristically. At that time, university festivals had political tendencies to resist against the military regime. It was also that kind of time when the festivals started to be called Daedong-je in earnest. Community games, such as tug-of-war and pungmul-nori, were included in the festivals, and even the phenomenon where formal festivals were rejected seemed to be spread. In the 90s, the political tendencies were almost extinct and the festivals consisted of events which suited the features of each department or club. Simple events, which each character of the group was fitted for, such as research, literature, arts, and sports, were held in the festivals. University festivals had shown periodic characteristics and helped influence students’ own cultures by the 90s.


 

Students are not the center of festivals anymore
  Compared to past university festivals, the current university festivals are getting further away from the attention of students. According to the survey about the CBNU festival with 850 of CBNU students, 18% of respondents voted for ‘fun’, 29% voted for ‘not fun’, and 20% voted for ‘I’ve never thought about it’. In other words, 49% of students didn’t have interest or were unsatisfied with the university festival.
  To the question of the most anticipated event, ‘performances of invited singers’ received 68%, much more than half of the votes. As ‘performances of invited singers’ ranked overwhelmingly high, which singer will come became a standard to measure how interesting university festivals are. ‘Running booths’, which was another choice of the question, received 25% votes. The result said that students showed passive attitudes on operation or participation in booths though almost half of them didn’t have interest or were unsatisfied with the university festival.
  In the case of college festivals, the number of departments is decreasing. Booths are spaces run by students, and we can measure the rate of participation in the festival by the amount and quality of the booths. Looking into the college festivals this September, few booths were operated in the College of Humanities. In the College of Commerce and Business Administration, there were just invited singers’ performances, but no booth was run by students themselves. What’s more, several departments felt antipathy for running booths. A student union president of a department, who asked not to be named, said, “We couldn’t quit running booths because it had been continuously performed before. I felt pressured to run booths necessarily in the college festival. I think that it is a formal and meaningless event.”
  This is happening elsewhere as well as CBNU. For example, there was an evaluation of the university festival last year by the student government in Chonbuk University. 48% of 591 respondents marked ‘necessary’ about inviting pop singers during the festival. In addition, student participation rate is falling because the contents of programs which constitute the festival are lacking. The percentage of students who said they would not participate in the festival was about 47%.

Why are we getting further away from the university festival?

  The greatest reason why CBNU students feel inconvenience about the university festival is that it has no bars. According to the survey results, about 40% of 850 students wanted bars to be installed. CBNU abolished the bars during festivals over 10 years ago. Student affairs banned bars again this year, just like last year, but drunken parties were held last year and this year in the College of Agriculture, Life & Environments Sciences because there are not definitive regulations about that. Actually, the law that banned drinking in universities has yet to be passed, but CBNU has prohibited drinking in the university since last year and controlled it through the campus police. In the case of other universities, they are allowing drinking in universities on special occasions, such as athletic meetings and festivals. The action of student affairs was accepted by the student government. The president of the student government said, “I think not drinking in university is a healthy custom which is more than 10 years old. We wanted to show that it was possible to enjoy the festival without drinking to other universities and our students. Instead, we installed other exciting things. I hope for students to break the stereotype that drinking is surely needed during university festivals, and abolition of bars is not unreasonable but for the safety of students to avoid many accidents. We want students to know and understand that.”
  Students show low participation in festivals because they feel a burden about their studying and employment stress. Lee Min-ji(Dept. of Business Management) said, “I’ve been through  a really hard time because of studying and employment stress. Nowadays, the campus atmosphere is really boosted, but I can’t enjoy that festive campus atmosphere. I went so far as to become angry about my situation.”

Efforts to overcome the crisis

  This year, some universities’ general student associations held some special events. The most representative event was the ferry Sewol's memorial ceremony. In the case of Hongik University, they held a cartoon exhibition for the Sewol. Ewha Women’s University held an event whose theme was a Sewol memorial. On their campus, they installed a ‘Memorial Zone’, and they also gave students ribbons and paper ships, and the general student association gave themselves tattoos of the Sewol’s accident day, ‘20140416’. Kim Ji-hyun(’13, Kyunghee University) said, “It’s been 3 months since the Sewol’s accident, and the fact that Sewol’s accident has been forgotten by people is true. Because of this event, I recalled that accident again.” It’s the same with other universities like Hanyang University, Konkuk University. They held a Sewol memorial event, and that event made students recall that accident. CBNU also made efforts to make students participate in campus festivals. One of their efforts was held by the College of Social Sciences and the College of Natural Sciences. In the case of the College of Natural Sciences, because of its location, they only held an event for their own students. However, this year, they combined with the College of Social Sciences, which can be easily noticed by students due to location. That’s why this year they can get more attention from students. Moreover, the College of Social Sciences also can get more benefits compared to last year. They can get more College of Natural Sciences’ students, which, compared to the College of Social Sciences, has more than one and a half as many students. Each college’s students’ association answered CBT’s interview, and they were satisfied with this year’s festivals except for two things. The director of planning said, “This has been the biggest scale of festivals held at CBNU so far. To help students enjoy the festivals without alcohol, they prepared more than 70 booths. Unlike last year’s festival, this year we divided into five sections and each section has its own theme. Students can choose booths in which they want to participate. All of the events demand less than 10 minutes. Just come and enjoy the festival.”

By Lee Da-yeon | dy34@cbnu.ac.kr

By Choi Da-young | dy35@cbnu.ac.kr

By Sun Jung-eun | jes35@cbnu.ac.kr