Towards an ‘Internationalized’ CNU

In November 2004, Kang Jung-chaee, President of CNU, announced seven agendas for educational reform for the prospective future of the university. One of them is to strengthen international cooperation. The project is intended to provide CNU students with various study-abroad programs, as well as to establish extensive links with universities and research institutions of other foreign countries.

Chonnam Tribune aims to suggest a clear sense of direction to the University policy on international cooperation. In the first section, the present international programs of CNU are analyzed to figure out their pros and cons. In the second section, pending problems to be solved are indicated, from both viewpoints of university organization and students. Finally some specific methods are suggested to stir up an international air at CNU. –Ed.

The present condition of CNU international programs

The CNU international programs can be categorized into two groups; dispatching programs, and in-coming programs for foreign students and professors. Dispatching programs can be specified as shown in the table; Credited or Non-Credited course and Short- or Long-term program. This section focuses on dispatching CNU students to other countries.

As shown in the table, CNU organizes several programs to take students to the USA, Australia, China, Japan and other European countries. In total, CNU sent approximately 500 students around the world in 2004. The most common and well-known programs are ‘Overseas Language Training Course’ and ‘Overseas Internship Program’ which send students to the USA or Australia for eight weeks. Both programs are organized on the basis of agreements with the designated international educational organizations of each country that enable students to take well-organized ESL courses and explore new culture during their Summer/Winter vacation.

When it comes to long-term programs, CNU used to have only one program titled ‘Student Exchange Program’ that allowed students to study for one year in the USA, China or Japan; it was not until last year that CNU launched a new long-term program titled ‘Dual Degree Program’ with the University of Missouri-Columbia and Bloomfield College. The benefits of Student Exchange Programs can vary depending on the conditions of the exchange agreement between CNU and the exchange institutions. Based on the principle of reciprocal exchange of benefits, the standard exchange conditions regulating tuition and student fees should be observed by host universities. Still, students are responsible for paying room and board fees. Other non-credit and short-term programs are shown in the table.

CNU should exert more effort to develop programs to meet students’ needs.

Despite the benefits, the number of applicants barely reaches the full quota and the presentations of study abroad programs are not so crowded. The International Center and related departments should make more efforts to attract the interest of the students to the programs.

A well-placed billboard, to make the programs public, might be a big help and one of the surest ways for promotion. However, there is something more important. What students really want to know about is what they can earn from the programs and how the programs guarantee effects, instead of just saying “We have some programs for you.” Unfortunately, it’s hard to find critical information on campus. The students said that the best way to collect useful information is to contact someone who has participated in a certain program before. For this reason, the university should develop institutional devices to allow students easy access to information such as home-coming reports and more concrete descriptions and information about each program on the CNU website.

As has been mentioned, the President promised to increase the number of students benefiting from overseas programs a great deal, from 500 in 2004 up to 2000 in the next year. Besides, CNU has budgeted 1,500,000,000 for an international cooperation project, including an increase of budget by 300,000,000 for study-abroad programs, in 2005. According to Heo Min, vice-director of the International Center, the university is also considering that they should ease qualifications for applying for short-term overseas programs. These actions are desirable to try and help students to take the first steps toward being international-minded students. However, a quantitative increase in the number does not ensure the globalization of CNU. The concerned should try to think about a qualitative way as well; CNU should consider how to improve the programs in qualitative ways, because an increase in the number of participants can lead to a decline in standards.

A qualitative change means that CNU should develop academic and long-term programs, more than just ESL classes. In fact, there were about three hundred students who participated in short-term overseas programs in 2004. It is natural to think that most of them will be motivated to search for another chance to study abroad. Unfortunately for them, CNU has only the limited quota of around fifteen Student Exchange Programs, in the USA, China and Japan. Moreover, the competition among rival students will become fiercer when the number of participants of short-term programs increases to two thousand in 2005. It is rarely expected that just an eight-week-long language course will give any critical benefits to experience and foreign language skills.

 To get ready to accept a large number of potential students who have already completed a basic language course and are prepared, effective and clear solutions need to be suggested. First of all, as a way of achieving academic accomplishment, CNU should increase the quota of Student Exchange Programs, as well as establish various links with more foreign universities. Second, a long-term internship program should be created. The long-term overseas internship programs have the great effects of accumulating diversified practical experiences and building personal networks to collect this information, as well as improving language skills. According to the media, ‘K’ University, the only university providing a long-term Overseas Internship Program in Korea, has produced an outstanding student who has been admitted as an intern at the White House in the USA. Finally, CNU should be concerned about what conditions are more attractive to students and what makes students hesitate to apply for the programs, before new programs are launched.

 Two things that students are really concerned about when they think about applying for the programs are money and time. For example, a participant of the eight-week-long overseas language training course is expected to pay approximately 2,500,000 and that will increase to 3,500,000 if the visa fees and personal expenditure during the program are included. Even though CNU provides approximately 3,000,000, the student’s own costs are still high. If CNU cannot reduce the amount of the student’s own costs, it can choose the alternative. That is to select some students among the participants whose financial circumstances are not good enough to support themselves and to give them more financial benefits. The beneficiaries should be qualified and selected through justifiable screening. The promotion effect can be expected as well.

Timing is also a big concern when the students plan long-term overseas language training or internship programs, which CNU has been trying to make in cooperation with CNU alumni in L.A. If they take one or two semesters off to personally participate in the programs, they have to delay their graduation. On the other hand, it is a risk-taking decision. In order to prevent this problem, CNU is required to make a long-term overseas internship or language training programs credited at CNU. As a result, students can finish their school in time as well as take benefits from the overseas programs.

At this point with CNU announcing the internationalized CNU, Chonnam Tribune can confirm that the President and International Center express a strong will to actively push ahead with the potential projects to boost students’ competitiveness by providing support for them to maximize their skills in foreign languages and to accumulate diversified practical experiences. In the process, CNU staff should take the matters mentioned above into consideration to optimize the benefits for students. E. Fromm said, ‘The role of education is to provide the diverse opportunities to develop students’ own possibilities.” To secure the possibilities, the combined effects of three factors are required; a strong will of the President, active and progressive staff and passionate students. Overseas programs have to be enhanced both by universality and specialty, depending on the level of students; both quantitatively and qualitatively. Even though the programs do not have a long history, we expect that an internationally famous CNU alumnus will say, “The distinguished overseas program in CNU laid the foundation stones to advance into the world and achieve my goal.”

Table 1  CNU Overseas Programs in 2004

Table 2  New Programs in 2005 and Potential Programs