For the last few years, CBNU, like many other universities in Korea, has been persistently stressing that CBNU cares about undergraduate education. In the height of that assertion we can find the ACE project, a governmental initiative supported by the ministry of education. The ACE project has been regarded as the symbol of undergraduate education of CBNU, and has been advertised to bring a huge amount of money, of course, for the use of supporting education.
Now it seems the right time to ask ourselves whether we are heading for the original goal. Of course, there have been several actions taken in the positive direction. For example, communication-intensive (CI) courses seem to have good responses from the student and we are trying to split English classes into subclasses based on student's capacities. However, there have been almost no change in the Caluclus, General Physics, General Chemistry classes for the freshmen. Most of the students from science and engineering sector must take those classes. The number of classes, counting Calculus alone, is more than 40 each semester. Probably, the money put on CI-classes and splitting English classes must be tiny compared to the whole ACE budget, which suggests that the flow of the money is somehow twisted. We would like to remind the university authorities to revise how to spend the budget.
Here is a another suggestion that will likely improve our education system especially liberal arts classes, namely, 'hiring' more teaching assistants. We are not talking about the staffs in each department offices, who are directly hired by government, so that the total number is somehow controlled by the ministry of education, science, and technology. Teaching assistants will be temporarily hired for the support of classes. One might ask why professors need teaching assistant. Or isn't it their duty after all? Yes, it is, but let us take a look at the current situation. An average professor must teach 3 classes per semester, which sounds quite little compared to the usual number of classes students take, namely 6 to 9 classes. However, professors have other duties called research and service to the university or the community. In particular, the research part is something we can not (and should not) give up in the universities like CBNU. The duty of research part is usually not so much exposed to undergraduate students although that is a serious duty on which professors usually feel pressures. As a result, it looks like we have the atmosphere of 'no feedback' (to assignments and in some cases even to mid-term exams) spread widely in CBNU, including liberal arts classes. By assigning more teaching assistants we can absolutely improve the quality of teaching. Having more teaching assistants is not the only solution to the current problems of CBNU education. But, at least, it can be a starting point of changing undergraduate education in CBNU, which we need to urgently persue.