What do you think is the proudest thing of POSTECH? I think it is the fact that the university has been ruled by students. Thanks to many students’ work in several preparatory committees, many events sponsored by the university had been held successfully. Besides, many students work as members of independent student organizations such as Club Union, Female Undergraduate Association, Student Committee of Library, Central Managing Committee, Central Executive Committee, Dorm Union and so on. Thanks to their working, everything in POSTECH has worked out fine. However, students tend to evade to be leaders of those organizations. Almost every year, there are sole candidates for each organization, so there is no competitive composition. Even, it is quite easy to see no candidate of an organization and an Emergency Planning Committee is organized.
This is apparently serious problem. If there isn’t a leader at a department, the leader of Emergency Planning Committee for that department cannot attend for Department Representative Council and that department would face a lot of difficulties. Actually, at the end of last year, there were four Emergency Planning Committees for departments. And now, there are still two.
Then, why does almost everyone evade to be a leader? What is the reason? Of course, the study burden is a part of it. Postechians have so many things to do for their classes. Many students think they cannot afford the time for a leader of an organization. They think it is so busy work and worry about their daily life. Moreover, student leaders of POSTECH are paid for so called ‘passion pay’. Unlike other universities’ student organizations, they don’t have mighty power. In other universities, their budget are several times greater than POSTECH’s. Therefore, scales of their projects are so. This is the reason why the perception that leaders of student organizations only do work is prevalent.
Therefore, I think the university should do more support student organizations. It is fact that POSTECH provides much financial aid to students. I want to say that aid is not balanced well. There are many student organizations and the aid they receive is different. Sometimes, a person A feel like person B in other organization is paid more than him or her though B works less than him or her. That is why it is necessary to check and balance financial aid for all student organizations.
I’ve written about student leaders, so far, but I think it is more serious that ordinary students do not have interest in student activities. Last year, the election for leaders of Dorm Union(DU) had to be repeated because of low turnout. It was 44.18%, below 50%. According to the self-governing rule, the turnout should be above half of the electorate. For smooth election, it was modified to the candidate should get more than 33.33% votes of the electorate. After the modification, leaders of DU were elected. During this election for leaders of the Undergraduate Association, members of the Central Election Management Committee concerned about the repeat of that situation most. Fortunately, 54.78% of the electorate voted and the result of the election became accepted. Though just voting does not take much time, almost half of the electorate does not vote for their representatives. The turnout of national elections is increasing. If students do not pay attention to their university, can they pay attention to their country?
