What Is the Level of Diversity Awareness Among PNU Members?
PNU DC released the "PNU Diversity Report" on March 28th. The DC assessed diversity awareness among university members, dividing them into faculty, staff, undergraduates, and graduate students. As a result, faculty recorded the lowest scores in almost all categories.
On March 28th, “Diversity Committee (DC)” of Pusan National University (PNU) announced that DC had published a “Diversity Report” to summarize the diversity status of 2023. This report marks the second publication following last year. According to the report obtained by “Channel PNU,” it was confirmed that among the PNU members, the diversity index of undergraduate students was high. However, the index of the faculty group is low.
The DC conducted a survey in November 2023, targeting 1,498 individuals, including 476 faculty members (16.5%), 311 staff members (41.4%), 414 undergraduate students (1.56%), and 297 graduate students (3.56%), to measure the “DEIL Diversity Index.” This index, developed independently by PNU, evaluates the perception levels of PNU members regarding Diversity (D), Equity (E), Inclusion (I), and Locality (L). The index ranges between zero and one, with higher values indicating greater diversity.
As a result, among the four categories, undergraduate students had the highest average in the DEIL index. At the same time, faculty and staff showed notably lower scores in Diversity and Equity. Regarding diversity, the scores were 0.45 for faculty members, 0.46 for staff members, 0.64 for undergraduate students, and 0.6 for graduate students. Especially, the faculty group recorded the lowest figures in all indices except for Inclusion. The report pointed out, “PNU needs to focus on hiring faculty and staff from diverse backgrounds and provide them with fair treatment and opportunities. Specific measures targeting faculty are necessary.”
This DEIL survey had subjective responses exposing the seriousness of discrimination and exclusion among PNU members. The report showed, “A point that must be mentioned from the undergraduates’ reply is the issue of hate speech within the PNU online anonymous community, “Everytime.” Within PNU, there are serious problems such as campus-based hierarchy and disregard, exclusion and stigmatization.” It added, “In addition to this, some directly experienced hate towards the Honam region, degradation of women, hatred towards foreign students, discrimination based on admission grades or majors, disregard for students who enter the school with rural screening, discrimination based on hometown, and criticism towards progressive-minded peers.”
The DC compiled the discussions from a forum gathering faculty, staff, and undergraduate and graduate students into this report. According to the report, they collectively advocated for establishing campus programs to enhance diversity. They argued that PNU needs to foster an inclusive culture that embraces diversity, saying, “We need a discussion to contemplate the unique characteristics and policy tasks of PNU from the perspective of diversity.”
Meanwhile, there was an attempt to include “university internal staff” as part of the survey respondents in this year, unlike last year, to ensure diversity in the research process. Mun Jae-Won, director of the Korean Ethnic Culture Research Institute at PNU, who was in charge of the research, stated, “Employees hired by PNU departments such as the research institute and the division of industry cooperation are mostly temporary workers and are not captured in the official school statistics, leaving blind spots. Therefore, we thought there was a need to grasp the exact circumstances of their treatment.”
The DC plans to move beyond quantifying diversity status and drive policy formulation and further research in the future. Director Mun evaluated, “Through the two reports so far, we can consider it the first step in diagnosing the diversity status of PNU. Based on this, our task is determining what policies to create and implement.” She continued, “The publication of diversity reports largely depends on the PNU president’s will. If the school continues to publish this report, it can lead to in-depth research on diversity at PNU.”
The report is planned to be distributed to significant institutions on campus by the middle of April.
Reporter Jeong Da-Min
Translated by Ha Chae-Won