Park Dongsik, Mayor of Sacheon, Earns Master's Degree in Public Administration from Gyeongsang National University

The Honored Nickname "Manhakdo Mayor"

Park Dongsik, mayor of Sacheon City in Gyeongnam Province, is gaining attention for earning a master's degree in Public Administration from Gyeongsang National University as a late bloomer scholar at an advanced age.

Mayor Park will receive his master's degree in Public Administration from the Graduate School of Public Administration at the 2023 Gyeongsang National University Spring Commencement Ceremony held at 10 a.m. on the 23rd in the main auditorium of the GNU Convention Center on the Gajwa Campus.

The commencement ceremony will be held with about 1,000 attendees including the university president, headquarters officials, college deans, guests, graduates, and parents, proceeding in the order of opening ceremony, national anthem, academic report, recitation of the pioneering poem, degree conferral, congratulatory speeches, degree awarding, and singing of the school song.

Park Dongsik, Mayor of Sacheon.

Having served as the 10th chairman of the latter half of the Gyeongsangnam-do Provincial Council, Mayor Park enrolled in the Graduate School of Public Administration at Gyeongsang National University in March 2021 to further enhance his expertise in local autonomy and local councils.

In particular, even after taking office as the 11th mayor of Sacheon on July 1, 2022, he devoted himself to his studies by making time amid his busy public service schedule, ultimately earning his master's degree in Public Administration.

As a result, Mayor Park earned the honorable nickname "Manhakdo Mayor," referring to a person who discovers the joy of learning late and studies at an advanced age.

As Sacheon City's first salaried employee, Mayor Park achieved a significant outcome by signing investment agreements (MOUs) worth approximately 340 billion KRW at the 2023 Gyeongsangnam-do Investment Attraction Briefing.

Additionally, in July of last year, Mayor Park secured 2.3 billion KRW in special grants by actively visiting the Disaster Management Division and the Local Tax Division of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, among others, through on-the-ground sales administration. This was the largest amount of special grants received by Sacheon City in the first half of the year.

Notably, Mayor Park played a major role in the opening of the Sacheon branch of the Korea Aerospace Agency, Korea’s equivalent of NASA.

He actively promoted the necessity and justification for the opening of the Sacheon Aerospace Agency by meeting with members of the National Assembly regardless of party affiliation, as well as organizing forums, seminars, and conferences.

When the special law for the Aerospace Agency stalled in the National Assembly for over nine months due to partisan differences, Mayor Park led a one-person protest in front of the National Assembly and spearheaded the "Aerospace Agency Special Law National Assembly Passage Relay Campaign," which involved 18 mayors and county heads from Gyeongnam Province.

Furthermore, he has achieved many accomplishments, including receiving a first-grade rating in the 2023 Comprehensive Integrity Evaluation hosted by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission and winning the Grand Prize in the Basic Local Government Administration category at the 4th Korea Integrity Awards.

Mayor Park said, "I pursued my studies alongside my duties as a professional mayor with the desire to contribute to regional development and political progress. I will make good use of the knowledge I have gained to accelerate the construction of a happy city, Sacheon."

Meanwhile, Mayor Park graduated from Samcheonpo Technical High School and majored in Microbiology at Gyeongnam National University of Science and Technology. He has served as a member of the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th Gyeongnam Provincial Assembly and as chairman of the latter half of the 10th Gyeongnam Provincial Council. He is currently serving as the 11th mayor of Sacheon.

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