Last February 15th, CBNU announced that the College of Pharmacy had completely finished relocating its department to the Osong campus, which is located in the Osong industrial complex. This means that establishing the Osong campus, which was part one of the university projects, is finally done.
The project of expanding the campus area has carried forward since 2015. This plan is to separate CBNU into 4 campuses: with Cheongju as the main campus and Osong, Ochang, and Sejong as specialized campuses. In the case of the Osong campus, its purpose is specializing in bio- and nanotechnology. For this, CBNU has built an academic-industrial district in Osong, and some undergrads and graduates of the Dept. of Pharmacy and the Dept. of Manufacturing moved there and started graduate work and lectures. Then, they finally moved the whole College of Pharmacy in February this year. Not only moving the college, CBNU had a plan to support pharmacy businesses and academic-industrial research & development for this new campus. The Ochang campus is for specializing in international and communications technology(ICT). As a part of this project, in April 2016, the university moved the business center to the Institute of Convergence Technology in Ochang after finishing 3 years of construction. Lastly, the Sejong campus will be done by 2023. This campus is designed to specialize in Veterinary Medicine, including supporting a veterinary rehabilitation center, a clinical teaching facility, and a Graduate Dept. of Veterinary Medicine, and it has already made a contract with Sejong City.
However, The problems of the Osong campus start off with commuting and residences. Students who don¡¯t live near the campus can¡¯t choose but to commute either by a shuttle bus provided by CBNU or by city bus. Since there are no dormitories, the only way to live near the campus is to get an efficiency room. Kim Hee-jung, who is a student of the Dept. of Pharmacy, said, ¡°Even though I frequently use a shuttle bus, it is true that taking shuttle buses is quite inconvenient because the timetable of the buses is bad. However, when I commute from the campus, I would rather use a city bus because the shuttles cease operating around that time. Also, since the Osong campus doesn¡¯t have a school cafeteria, we use the cafeteria in a center called ¡®C&V Center¡¯ instead. If we don¡¯t use it, we use some cafes or restaurants off-campus, but there are few options.¡±
Despite the Osong and Ochang campuses being a part of CBNU, there are no exact campus maps yet. As of March 28, the campus map provided by CBNU is only about Gaesin. People cannot even find department building numbers or learn whether there is a cafeteria or facilities such as cafes or stationary stores until they go to the campus and find out. If a student who has never been to the Osong or Ochang campus visits there now, the student might feel a little nervous because he or she cannot get any details about these campuses. About this situation, a university official answered, ¡°We are trying to make it comfortable for students to study there. We are seeking a way to build dormitories on Osong campus. Detailed campus maps of Osong and Ochang will be uploaded by the second week of April. In addition to this, the timetable of shuttle buses is scheduled to be readjusted, and we are also doing our best to expand and readjust city bus service routes for the Osong campus.¡±
The widening campus can revitalize a local area near the campus and can strengthen the students¡¯ competitiveness by providing a better environment for their studies than before. If university officials take a good deal of time to solve those problems and apply solutions to the future Sejong campus, students will attend school without any complaints.
By Lee Ju-yeon
jy37@cbnu.ac.kr