Lee Jong-chan (Phys Ph.D candidate) was elected as the first student president of the graduate school. The Postech Times met with him and obtained his opinion regarding the current issues and his resolutions as the first student president of the graduate school.
-What are the factors behind the establishment of the graduate student body?
I could realize that in order to communicate effectively with the school authority, we need to have an organization that officially represents graduate students. Previously, the opinion of graduate students was reflected in a limited way. As I worked as the representative of graduate students in the POSTECH council in 2010, many times I faced that school policies were being rammed through without any input from graduate students. In several issues, the school authorities did not recognize the mandate of the representative of graduate students due to its weakness in gathering opinion. In 2010, although there was a perfunctory election for the representative of graduate students, the level of participation was low; besides, we had gathered the opinion of graduate students via E-mail. It was a hard situation to insist that our opinion represented the viewpoint of all graduate students.
-What is the key issue that you treat as the first student president of the graduate school?
As I mentioned in the election manifesto, it is not too much to emphasize the necessity for the legislative organ that develops an opinion or position about a topic or issue from the standpoint of graduate students. For example, the issue of discontinuation of the medical expense reimbursement is a problem due to the lack of understanding between the school authorities and graduate students. Before setting up the graduate student body, they only asked the opinion of the undergraduate student body and they prepared suggestions before asking the opinion of the representative of graduate students. Accordingly, by setting up the graduate student body, we can more strongly gather our common opinion and officially assert our interest and rights.
- Any last words for POSTECH students?
Basically, graduate students are busy working towards their academic accomplishment. However, participating in the decision making process which influences their campus life is much better compared to the disadvantages that they would stand for. I will do my best to construct a sustainable channel through which we can communicate with each other.
