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June 5. (Photo by Jeon Jin-sik)　

By Jeon Jin-sik, Daejeon Correspondent　

Professors at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) are demanding the immediate resignation of the institute’s president, Suh Nam-pyo, citing his unilateral management style and breaking of promises. The conflict is now escalating, after Suh stated that he has no intention of stepping down.

On Thursday, after holding an emergency general meeting, KAIST’s council of professors issued a statement saying, “We hold Suh responsible overall for violation of loyalty, arbitrary leadership, and several problems that have emerged in his general management of the institute, and demand that he resign immediately.”

As grounds for its demand, the council cited the results of a survey conducted on-line from Sept. 26 to 28. In answer to a question in the survey that asked, “What is your opinion regarding the president‘s attitude at a time when he is failing to implement the agreement [on an emergency reform committee] that he concluded with all [KAIST] professors?” 234 out of the 369 professors that responded (63.4%) said, “I hold the president responsible for not implementing the agreement and demand that he resign.” Only 35 professors (9.5%) answered, “I do not consider it a problem.” 369 (70.7%) of the 522 professors belonging to the council took part in the survey.

A majority of professors pointed out mistakes made by Suh. They said to Suh’s claim of having signed the agreement “without knowing what it was” constituted deception of the council’s members and quashing of the spirit of the agreement (84.3%). The professors also said that Suh must accept blame for loss of KAIST management funds (87.3%); and that he is adhering to his existing arbitrary methods of managing KAIST (82.9%).

“Voluntary retirement by the president was discussed in spring this year at the time of the student suicides incident, but we conceded by settling for the expression, ’A new style of leadership is needed.‘ In the end, we were thoroughly betrayed,” said Kyung Chong-min, chairman of the council of professors. “If Suh does not accept demands for his resignation, we will discuss specific avenues of response.”

“The president has no intention of resigning now,” said KAIST vice President Lee Yong-hoon at a press conference held on behalf of Suh. KAIST’s undergraduate student body and other students have been protesting strongly since the institute’s decided to apply its “English language lecture reduction plan” only to current first year undergraduates (those that joined in 2011), rather than to all undergraduates.

Suh has been under fire for instituting harsh student policies that some say are representative of South Korea’s ultra-competitive atmosphere. They included including a punitive tuition system based on grades, classes taught entirely in English, and harsh crackdowns on any students that voiced disagreement. After four student suicides from January through April of this year, Suh finally promised to institute reforms.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]