Over the past three years, the most significant change in Pusan National University (PNU) was the campus. Since PNU President Cha Jeong-In took office, there have been notable changes throughout the campus, such as landscaping maintenance and building remodeling projects. These changes stem from the campus strategy of President Cha. It is to make the university like a park by greening the center of the campus. President Cha is working hard to cultivate the campus to the extent that he mentioned the case of canceling the construction of the steel parking lot and ordering that place to be left as a forest in his congratulatory address at various awards ceremonies. The “Campus Master Plan” is a blueprint that compiles these strategies of the president. The plan to increase landscaping through tearing down, building, and remodeling all buildings on campus over the next ten years will be based on the master plan. All the recent construction projects are part of the master plan.

PNU Head Offices have also intensively promoted it since last year. Since the master plan is commonly revised once every four years, and the final revision was in 2018, revisions were announced last year. In May 2022, local daily newspapers, including The Kookje Daily News, also widely reported that “humanism beat developmentalism” ahead of the announcement of the master plan in August. Around that time, “Channel PNU” and the promotional magazines from the PNU Head Offices also reported an interview with the president about this. President Cha said that the plan will include greening the center of the campus in the master plan. However, the announcement was postponed for seven months to March this year. I have struggled to cover it for three months from December last year to report in time, but even that announcement was postponed. The department in charge requested to put off the report due to the possibility of correction. But the article has yet to be reported. The master plan was repeatedly postponed due to detailed revisions, such as reflecting the Glocal University 30 project. It seemed tangible at times but vanished like a mirage in the desert.

It is a strange situation. Promotion and business are being carried out without any foundational documents. Many of the contents of the master plan were revealed through interviews and articles by the president. Nevertheless, nothing has been documented or formulated. The university’s campus development plan for the next ten years depends on the instructions from the personal thoughts of the university president. The reason why policies should be documented is that they are only sustainable when based on a consistent policy stance. The university president’s term is four years, but the campus development plan aims for the future decade. In this situation, it is no wonder that plans that have not been disclosed immediately disappear when the PNU president is changed. When the underlying document is released, the understanding and consensus of university members are formed based on the papers. Based on this, a policy stance is developed that does not depend on the individual president. Particulars can change. But if the general theory is confused, it creates confusion.

Certainly, PNU Head Offices also seem to have circumstances in which they cannot confidently present the master plan. In particular, the most emphasized “greening” has been significantly reduced. In the master plan, which was scheduled to be unveiled in August last year, it was planned to pull the water from Mirinaegol and let it flow to the main gate, and tear down the Moonchang Hall, 1st and 2nd Physics Building, Natural Science Building, Earth Science Building, and Saetbeol Hall and leave them as green spaces. However, most of the plans were canceled except for the demolition of the Natural Science Building. There are also many sensitive objects to be considered. PNU Head Offices are struggling with Busan city and Geumjeong-gu over the issue of Geumsaem-ro, a road that crosses the middle of the university. There are suspicions that the Busan Metropolitan Council took the construction of a special-education school hostage last year, and the suspension of the construction of the Pharmaceutical Research Building was also related to that. As such a conflict was relieved by “first aid” when it signed an MOU with Geumjeong-gu in March, the university had no choice but to be on edge. In addition, PNU has to consider the selection of the Glocal University 30 project with 100 billion won in subsidies from the government, which means that it is trapped in a high-dimensional equation.

However, the complexity of the situation does not eliminate the obligation to explain policy implementation. As the policy is important, full explanations have to be provided to university members. In an interview with “Channel PNU” in May last year, President Cha said, “It is one of the important duties of the president to make the campus beautiful.” In any aspect, President Cha’s performance is already being evaluated through campus by PNU members, including students, professors, and staff. In the student community, such as “Everytime,” even students who were not interested in university administration cheered the campus change, saying, “I feel more positive about the university because the campus is getting more beautiful.” In that sense, there is a hope that the change in the campus that the PNU president is working on will continue, not just remain a short-term event.

Reporter Jun Hyung-Seo

Translated by Kim Tae-Yi