Last year, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology(MEST) designated Chungbuk National University(CBNU) as a university which should be restructured along with Kangwon National University, Kunsan University, and Busan University of Education. MEST is forcing CBNU to reform its structure, such as the direct election system of the university president and the reduction or merge of departments, by applying criteria such as employment rates and recruitment rates of students which are not appropriate for local national universities.
The purpose of MEST could be to force CBNU to be ready for incorporating. Because of MEST’s coercion and unilateral push, the honor and pride of CBNU are exhaustively hurt. The fatal blow did not affect just CBNU. Freshmen who will enter CBNU and enrolled students lost their pride of our school a bit.
Actually, whenever I see answers to some CBNU freshmen’s survey on the internet and through other communication media which ask about CBNU campus life, I doubt whether we can proudly introduce our university. Many answers include sentences such as 'CBNU is a low-quality university'
When our university gained the dishonorable title, “A university which should be restructured”, I also worried about my career and thought seriously, "Is my school really a low-quality university?” For a while, I uncritically accepted the title 'low-quality university' at the insistence of the press and media, and my pride about CBNU fell a lot. However, we should realize that implementing the University Evaluation System is not for improving the quality of higher education but for pulling down university autonomy by incorporating universities and abolishing the system of direct elections of the president.
CBNU is a good national university as it received an ACE(Advancement for College Education) grant last year and was selected as the Regional Stronghold National University. Although the external situation is not good, we can and have to retain our university pride.