Mentoring with a professor program is one of the ACE projects that has been introduced since 2011. Its goal is to provide students counseling with professors about campus life and establishing communicative relationships between students and professors from entrance to graduation. This program was introduced for better communication with professors and students, and there have been many positive responses from students. However, lately this program has become a torment for students.

Response to Mentoring with a professor program
  According to the statistics on CBNU’s 2014 counseling, except for the College of Pharmacy, which accomplished 100% of counseling, the rest of the colleges showed lower completion rates, like 57% in the College of Commerce and Business Administration, 65% in the College of Electrical & Computer Engineering, and 71% in the College of Humanities. The reason why this program is an issue for CBNU students is that they can’t gain a credit for graduation if they don’t fulfill a fixed number of counseling sessions. Students’ opinions are divided into pros and cons not just by students who entered CBNU in 2011 but also by students who entered CBNU after 2011. Lee Jae-jin(’14, Dept. of Safety Engineering) said, “I don’t want to counsel with a professor who I never met in class because I have nothing to talk about with him or her. It’s not like sincere relationship counseling. I feel like I am doing it because of a sense of duty.” On the other side, Park Soo-young(’13, Dept. of Chinese Language & Culture) said, “Without this system, there will be no chance to go to a professor’s office. Because of this system, I can get to know a professor better.”  According to Lee Jong-hee, Dept. of Student Affairs’s officer, said, “Some professors had a problem with this program. They had an increased workload and they didn’t know how to give advice to students who they never met in class.”
  CBT surveyed 21 foreign students for their satisfaction about this program. According to this survey, 11 students answered ‘dissatisfied’ with this program. 29% of students who feel satisfied think this program helps to get departmental information, and 19% of satisfied students answered it helps to adapt to school life. However, 48% of dissatisfied students feel this program is not that helpful, and 24% of dissatisfied students answered it is difficult to communicate with professors in this program.

Position of CBNU
  However, Lee Jong-hee said, “We made this project because we had to improve the pre-existing mentoring with a professor system.” He also said, “Students can change their counseling professor if they want to. However, it depends on their department’s policy.”In the case of the graduation problem, to eliminate a credit problem, they made two policies for students to gain a credit for graduation. However, it will take effects after November, 2014. One is if students take a special course, then it  will be replaced with a graduation credit even though they didn’t fulfill 14 sessions of counseling. The second way is you can counsel with a specialty consultant in CBNU’s Human Resources Development. Also, in September, 2013, CBNU implemented a text messaging system for letting them know how many times they had counseling with a professor and how many times they have left. CBNU’s Dept. of Student Affairs is working hard to let people know how to use these programs. They even held a briefing with each department’s assistant.
  Mentoring with a professor program was made over a long time with much university effort, but most students do this because they feel a sense of duty about it. This program was made for students. However, some students who are receiving benefits are dissatisfied with this program. Now, it is time for CBNU to make better programs for all of the students and professors.

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