KAIST to Hire More MIT Professors
By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter
The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) is to hire four to five professors from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the school's president Suh Nam-pyo said.
Suh, who himself was an MIT professor before coming to Korea last year, will present the plan at the Ultra Workshop conference to be held on Jeju Island on Wednesday. The conference is hosted by the government and invites dozens of Korean scientists from all over the world.
``Two KAIST graduates are now MIT professors and four or five new professors at KAIST will be coming from MIT,'' Suh said in his script, while stressing that KAIST should become a global institution. ``Our graduates should lead global companies and become professors in other leading universities.''
KAIST has opened its doors to foreign professors and students more than most other Korean universities. In 2004, it even appointed Nobel physics laureate Robert Laughlin as president, the first foreigner to lead a Korean university, though he failed to impress the faculties and was let go last year.
KAIST is considered the best science and engineering school in Korea. According to the recent university rankings from Times, it ranked 48th among all technology schools in the world, and 132nd overall. Only Seoul National University (51st) was ahead of it in the overall rankings.
MIT is likely to be the main source of KAIST's new human power, partly thanks to Suh's personal reputation and influence there. In October, it appointed a 27-year-old MIT graduate Mary Kathryn Thompson as an assistant professor in its civil and environmental engineering department.
Following Thompson, the inflow of foreign professors may irritate some of the school's present staff members. President Suh has implemented a series of bold reform actions since last year that have drawn mostly positive reactions, but some professors have expressed concerns and protests about his hiring policies.
In one example, Suh rejected tenure requests for 15 of 35 professors, an unusually harsh decision for the academic society of South Korea where almost all professors are guaranteed tenure after serving several years. The faculty council of KAIST had issued a statement opposing the revised tenure system.
Another obstacle is the school's ineptitude of treating international members well. Located in suburb Daejeon, KAIST faculty members often complain of its distance from Seoul and lack of cultural infrastructure nearby.
Thompson, the new professor from MIT, has also pointed out that foreign staff may have some problem in adjusting to the KAIST life.
``The language barrier at KAIST is not a big problem. The language barrier outside of KAIST is not a problem if you're a tourist, but it's a huge problem if you're going to live here as an independent entity,'' she said in a letter sent to the president's office. ``The students and staff and faculty take great care of it, but it means that I can't really take care of myself here yet.''
There are 339 foreigners at KAIST now, including seven professors, 62 visiting and honorary professors, 48 post-doctoral researchers and 222 graduate and undergraduate students.