The Residential College (RC) is undergoing significant alterations since its establishment: the construction of common spaces like group study rooms and a fitness room. The reason for the renovation is the overall and rapid decrepitude of the RC building due to the characteristics of declining public facilities. The construction commenced on Oct. 30 and will last until the end of Jan. 2024. This is the first stage of the whole renovation of the RC which includes a room remodeling next summer, and the main facilities in this work are a coin-karaoke, a fitness room, and a group study room equipped with a screen monitor and a glass board, allowing students to study and hold diverse programs at any time. The renovation will also be followed by slight changes to the kitchen (extension) and adding a vending machine.
  Although there is much transition in this project, residents’ complaints have skyrocketed due to the surrounding inconveniences of the construction. Accordingly, The Postech Times interviewed Professor Kangbok Lee, Vice President of Admissions and Student Affairs, to delve into the process of the RC renewal and why it is being carried out despite predicted criticism.
  The major issues are the noise and the fact that the construction proceeded during the semester. The main source of noise comes from the disassembly of floor tiles. In order to reduce the noise, a supplementary budget and an alternative plan have been established through weekly meetings with the contractor. However, the noise is inevitable, and it will gradually diminish because the biggest noise construction project has been completed.
  In this context, plenty of students have raised the question that why the construction period should be set amidst the regular semester. According to the interview, this renewal is an outlier of dormitory building funds, meaning that it needs considerable time to procure the budget from an external source, a university innovation project. Therefore, it was obviously impossible to determine a specific period and what is worse, the bidding for design and construction companies did not proceed at once. The construction period was finally scheduled after the Fall semester midterm, considering the needed period is 3.5 months and the condition that it must be completed before the start of the Spring semester next year. Since it is the first shovel for RC remodeling, there was some trial and error and the rest of the remodeling project including rooms, and outdoor terraces will proceed with the convenience of students in mind as much as possible.
  Prof. Lee said, at the end of the interview, “RC is POSTECH’s confident culture that it could inspire the spirit of community and provide high-quality education. Since space often determines culture, we will maintain these valuable traditions by providing an excellent environment.”
  POSTECH campus is faced with a great deal of construction in conjunction with the campus master plan and the reconditioning of various sorts of deteriorating school facilities. As many other construction projects have been carried out so far, the POVIS board was the site of several inconvenience complaints, ensuring POSTECH should pay more attention to the members who go through the process, rather than merely focusing on the performance of the construction. This RC renovation will shoulder more complaints and it is expected that follow-up works have to coexist with the inhabitants, and ultimately, school funds, not external sources, should be more aggressively invested to normalize construction since dormitories are directly related to students’ lives.