`Polifessors'

By Jay Kim

“Polifessor” is a new term that has recently appeared in the Korean media. It refers to a college professor that puts aside research or teaching to follow around a presidential candidate, hoping for a government position if they win. It carries a satirical tone, as the user is ridiculing the shameful behavior of such professors.

The news that around 500 professors (a surprising number) were flocking around the three major presidential candidates has made the front pages of Korean newspapers. That number would account for the whole faculty of a typical college. What would happen to these schools short of professors to teach their students? Certainly, part-time lecturers or teaching assistants will fill in for those who are leaving the students behind. From what I hear, compared with the polifessors, young part-time lecturers have far better scholastic and academic backgrounds and are more determined to put all of their energy into teaching but they cannot find appropriate positions because of these territorial polifessors. Furthermore, this kind of situation, where part-time lecturers have difficulty earning even 900,000 won per month, has led some of them to tragically commit suicide.

I think that these 500 polifessors, if they follow the presidential candidates with the goal of securing a role in the future administration, should resign from their positions at universities and give the younger lecturers opportunities. They have not shown willingness to spend their whole career on campus performing research and teaching. They also have nothing to lose in their political endeavors, since they can always go back to their universities if things do not work out. By not giving up their positions, they are trying to have it both ways. If they have as strong a resolve as Ahn Cheol-soo (who said he burned bridges behind him) has shown in his campaign, they should also have submitted their resignations to their schools before they got into politics, just as Ahn did.

Quite a few of them, I believe, might have left their campuses out of patriotic passion, not for a government job, but for our country. It is questionable, however, if the nation would trust their word, given the example that their greedier brethren have set.

In the U.S., I have never seen a case where college professors put aside their jobs to join political campaigns and follow candidates around. From time to time, I saw cases where a professor with certain expertise accepted a key position in the administration after a personal invitation from the president but those are also very rare cases. U.S. professors have the determination to spend their whole lives committed to education. They have a job that is respected by society, and their typical dream is to win a Nobel Prize. I have seen many professors who study all night in their offices to provide better education for young people. The announcement of the 2012 Nobel prize winners finished last week, and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, whose winner was announced last, went to two U.S. university professors. Almost half of the 2012 Nobel Prizes went to the U.S. as usual.

Many professors in Korea show more interest in politics than in Nobel Prizes. Thus, despite the highest ratio of professors to the total population, there is no Nobel laureate among our college professors. South Africa has Nobel laureates, and China won the prize in literature this year. Any country comparable to ours seems to have Nobel Prize winners in sciences and literature but we do not have one. I believe that our polifessors should be ashamed of themselves.

I think that it is morally right that polifessors give up their professorships to enter into politics and make room for the younger part-time lecturers. I also think that it would be appropriate for universities to have a regulation that forces a full-time faculty member to resign in order to move into politics. Only then we will have Nobel Prize winners in our universities.

Jay Kim is a former U.S. congressman. He serves as chairman of the Kim Chang Joon US-Korea Foundation. For more information, visit Kim’s website at www.jayckim.com.