Proceed with SNU's incorporation as planned

SEOUL, May 31 (Yonhap) -- Students and school officials are challenging the incorporation of Seoul National University (SNU) through illegal protests. About 500 students occupied the university president's office Monday night and are staging a sit-in, demanding that the preparatory committee for the incorporation disband. Earlier on March 31, about 300 students and unionized SNU officials detained the university president for 13 hours in a corridor in front of his office in protest of the university's incorporation plan. The incorporation of the top national university is proceeding under a bill passed by the National Assembly. The SNU incorporation bill, passed last December, calls for awarding the state-run university independent legal status and autonomy in personnel and fiscal affairs starting in 2012. The students worry the incorporation will damage the university's autonomy as two of the board directors will come from the government. They further claim that incorporation will make tuition hikes inevitable. Once the university is incorporated, a board consisting of up to 15 directors will be the highest decision-making body of the university and will have the right to autonomously manage school affairs. More than half of the directors should come from outside the school. There is no reason that having two government-appointed directors would damage SNU's autonomous management, nor would incorporation necessarily raise tuition. State support of the university will remain unchanged even after incorporation, so SNU will have the chance to pursue development strategies autonomously with financial aid and other forms of support from the government. The union members' objections might have arisen out of fear of the change of their status from public to corporate officials, which means the university can employ or fire professors and officials more freely than under the rigid civil servant system. For SNU, incorporation is essential to becoming a top-notch globalized university. Under the current system, SNU cannot but hover around 100th in the world ranking of universities. The students and school officials should refrain from making groundless objections and holding violent protests against the project that has been endorsed by the law. Instead, they should cooperate so that the plan can come to fruition. SNU authorities should exert further effort to communicate candidly with all of the people who make up the university, including those who oppose the plan.