Dongshin University President Lee Joo-hee: "We Will Realize a Shared University for Student Happiness and Regional Co-prosperity"

[1st Anniversary] Establishing a Collaboration System Among Universities, Local Governments, Legislatures, Institutions, and Companies

"Innovative Measures to Foster World-Class Strong SMEs and Global Talent"

Marking the first anniversary of his inauguration, Lee Joo-hee, president of Dongshin University, promised to realize a shared university that promotes student happiness and regional coexistence. He also revealed plans to nurture world-class small and medium-sized enterprises and global talents as part of his innovation strategy.

Lee Joo-hee, President of Dongshin University.

Since his inauguration on July 15 last year, President Lee has focused on fulfilling his campaign promises of ▲a university where students are happy ▲a shared university that coexists with the region ▲a university that stands together with its members until the end.

To create a university where students are happy, he promoted contests targeting enrolled students and actively incorporated various ideas proposed by students, such as improving the student cafeteria, into university administration.

Additionally, to allow students to concentrate on their studies without worrying about tuition fees, the university froze tuition fees and increased scholarship benefits and investments in student education.

Dongshin University’s scholarship amount per student steadily increased from 3.8 million KRW in 2020 to 4.01 million KRW in 2021 and 4.06 million KRW in 2022. During the same period, education expenses per student also rose significantly from 11.94 million KRW to 12.83 million KRW and 13.38 million KRW.

Such investments have translated into employment outcomes, further solidifying the university’s reputation as a strong institution for employment. According to the Ministry of Education’s 2023 disclosure, Dongshin University’s employment rate is 68.4%, ranking first among general universities in the Gwangju and Jeonnam regions with over 1,000 graduates. It has held the top employment rate for five consecutive years from 2019 to 2023 and ranked first in 11 out of the last 13 years since 2009.

Efforts were also made to improve student welfare. To provide students with a healthy breakfast at an affordable price, the university offers the “1,000 Won Breakfast” daily to 100 students. It also supports various festivals and events for enrolled students and faculty, such as cheering for the women’s professional volleyball team, college film festivals, and the Daedongje festival, creating a lively campus atmosphere.

Under the goal of “teaching what students truly want to learn,” the university fully introduced small-scale interdisciplinary majors and accelerated the shift to student-centered and practical education. It operates various overseas training and volunteer programs in Europe?including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria, and Germany?as well as in the United States’ Guam, New Zealand, Vietnam, Laos, and Japan, enhancing students’ global competencies.

To build a shared university that coexists with the region, the establishment of an “innovation platform” where the university, Naju City, the council, public institutions, companies, and citizens collaborate has attracted attention. The breakfast forum “NEXT Jeonnam-Naju Imagination Forum” to find future development directions for Jeonnam and Naju, and the Energy Valley Open Innovation showcased at Dongshin University’s Innovation Convergence Campus, received great responses from local residents.

Based on outstanding leadership, the university secured various government-funded projects, including the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s Innovation Convergence Campus construction project, the Korea University Accreditation Institute’s 3rd cycle university institutional accreditation, selection as an education internationalization competency certified university by the Ministry of Education, selection for the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Korean Medicine Innovation Technology Development Project, and participation in the Life 2.0 project, thereby establishing a foundation for joint development among the university, region, and companies.

Moreover, together with about 200 faculty and staff, the university participated in the “Hometown Love Donation System” to realize the value of a shared university that coexists with the region, drawing attention by donating over 25 million KRW in three rounds.

In particular, with the government fully implementing the Regional Innovation-Centered University Support System (RISE) project from 2025?shifting more than 50% of the Ministry of Education’s university financial support budget to region-led initiatives?and promoting the cultivation of 30 glocal universities that nurture and revitalize regions by 2027, cooperation with local governments is becoming increasingly important. In response, the university proactively reorganized its administrative structure.

In addition to the existing Vice President for Academic Affairs, a new “Vice President for External Cooperation” was established, and to strengthen external cooperation functions, the existing Public Relations Cooperation Team and Media Center were integrated and reorganized into the External Cooperation and Public Relations Office directly under the president.

The university established the Glocal Convergence College, overseeing the Department of Lifelong Education, Department of International Studies, College of Liberal Arts, Lifelong Education Institute, and Convergence Education Center. The Glocal Convergence College’s Department of Lifelong Education includes the Department of Energy Recycling, Department of Healthcare Welfare, Department of K-Namdo Culture, and Department of Korean Language Teaching, and began recruiting freshmen for the first time this year.

Entering his second year in office, President Lee plans to devote more effort to university innovation in preparation for the glocal era.

He declared innovation for the glocal university aimed at co-growth with regional companies and is promoting collaboration with global companies such as Salesforce, the world’s number one cloud-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) provider based in the United States.

President Lee Joo-hee of Dongshin University said, “With a sense of mission, the university will take the initiative to actively participate in research and development and investment attraction of regional companies, fostering mutual innovation through industry-government-academia-research collaboration and networking. We will lead the glocal era by generating innovative ideas and plans to nurture world-class small and medium-sized enterprises.”

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