A Professor 'Counting' Stars, Awards Pouring Like Stars... The Passion Story of Park Su-Young, Director of Dongmyeong University Community Collaboration Center

Grand Prize at Industry-Academia Awards, Busan Youth Instructor Association Commendation Plaque

AI Convergence Innovation Live Field Regional Youth Invitation Exploration Demonstrates Power

Opening of Marketing Support Platform for Small Bu

Professor Park Su-young of Dongmyung University.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] #1. He is a professor who loves stars. He is a man who has been counting stars for 23 years at an observatory in Busan. This year, he is 37 years old, so he started stargazing in the first year of middle school and has been teaching constellations to citizens every Saturday since college. He has been living as a stargazer for 23 years, learning and volunteering at Geumryeonsan Observatory.

#2. When director Kwak Kyung-taek’s movie Typhoon, starring actors Jang Dong-gun and Lee Jung-jae, was produced, the professor, who was a college student at the time, did something unexpected. He participated as a staff part-timer for underwater explosion scenes, helping with underwater installation work that created special effects such as torpedo launches. He made full use of the scuba diving license he had obtained at the time.

#3. He was a butterfly stroke swimming athlete in middle school. While he looks up at the night sky every Saturday, the nearby place he frequented was actually the sea. He holds a boat rowing license from the Korea Marine Sports Association and has been active as a water safety officer.

This is the story of Professor Park Soo-young of the Counseling Psychology Department, who is also the head of the Dongmyung University Community Collaboration Center. Professor Park is an alumnus of Dongmyung University.

This passionate professor, who can be described as socially active, romantic, and passionate, is currently one of the “hottest” professors at this university. When counting the abundant achievements he recently gained, he often lets out exclamations through brief pauses.

His life, connected through cooperation with the local community and internal and external volunteer work, is so active that his continuous award news is “amazing.”

Professor Park Soo-young recently received the Grand Prize in the Faculty Category at the 4th Dongmyung Industry-Academia Awards. The prize money was 2.6 million KRW. He also consecutively received the Proud Dongmyung Alumni Award, earning an additional 1 million KRW.

Outside the university, he received a plaque of appreciation from the Busan Information Technology Association last month and a merit plaque from the Busan Youth Guidance Association this month.

From July to December last year, he was the only one selected in the Busan area by the Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Creativity, receiving 30 million KRW in funding for the “AI Convergence Innovation Live Field Local Youth Invitation Exploration” program, which is also his creation.

▲Smart Farm (Urban Agriculture) ▲Drone ▲Maker Space ▲Amateur Astronomy and other diverse fields were covered in a total of 14 sessions targeting about 650 local youths.

He also poured passion into support cooperation with universities and companies.

To support the promotion of products and services of small business owners and youth enterprises struggling with market development due to COVID-19, since the second half of last year, he has been working with eight universities nationwide including Konkuk University, Paichai University, Jeonbuk National University, and Halla University to establish a “Cloud-based Marketing Support Platform (University Mall),” which is about to open soon.

Through a “company-close short-term research project” with Beatl Co., Ltd., a representative urban regeneration company in Busan (CEO Oh Jae-gwan), conducted over three months from October last year, he filed a patent in January related to a “digital aquarium with inserted aquatic creature illustrations” targeting infants and youths.

Dongmyung University played a leading role in creating the “Maker Space,” a diverse creative activity support space for local residents, inside the container-type complex living cultural space “Beacon Ground” under the Suyeong Elevated Road in Mangmi-dong, Suyeong-gu, through industry-academia cooperation with Beatl Co., Ltd. last November.

His activities for local governments and general residents have also been vigorous.

From June last year for five months, he engaged in a triangular cooperation with Busan Nam-gu Office and Yongho-dong Urban Regeneration Support Center for the “Yongho-da Family Project.” In November last year, they completed an urban regeneration residents’ university, garden creation, and safety handrail installation for residents of Yongho-dong.

In December last year, he and about ten faculty and staff made 400 cakes of love on campus and gifted them to underprivileged groups and sanitation workers in Nam-gu. Since last year, he has also been conducting barista (1st to 5th sessions) and baking education (1st session) for local residents.

Professor Park is leading students to become youth experts one after another.

He held an industry-academia cluster lecture preparing for the “Youth Guidance Counselor” qualification for current students and graduates, and the five-week course held in November last year achieved a 93.75% pass rate. Four years ago, the pass rate for counseling psychology students at this university was only 20-30%, but since he took charge as the major professor, it has exceeded 90%.

Professor Park has achieved great results by overseeing the university’s representative brand policy, the extracurricular “Living Lab” (a field-oriented program that identifies and directly solves local community problems).

Over about six months last year, a total of 172 students formed 29 TU-Living Lab teams and engaged in various problem-solving activities across 13 departments in the fields of tourism, education, environment, health, safety, and welfare.

The “Famous Spot Exploration” Living Lab team (Grand Prize winner) discovered hidden famous spots, specialties, celebrities, and premium culture in Busan that were not well known, toured them, and produced 14 exciting videos, gaining attention.

Professor Park also serves as a director of the University Living Lab Network Forum, the responsible professor for his university, and the responsible professor for the Southeast region participating universities of the Social Economy University Council.

Professor Park proudly said, “The famous spot exploration videos popular on SNS seem to have greatly contributed to raising pride in Busan and Korea, tourism commercialization, and glocal city sales.”

His passion seems like watching a record-breaking competition, wondering how far it will go.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.