After the public discussion launched from the student major council, the ISU president in cooperation with the GCS major opened another discussion forum about English courses and globalization in HGU with the university’s administrators. In this forum, many representatives including professor Scott Lincoln in charge of ISU, and Kang Ye Un, the leader of the School of Creative Convergence Education participated. The purposes of the forum were sharing a vision regarding global identity and the struggles of each organization facing the globalization, as well as ultimately conveying the conclusion to the president, and popularizing to other administers including the college chaplain and students.

Discussing Globalization in Handong
Further than the last forum which is focused on the quality and quantity of English 100% major courses, this forum focused on both sides of the “academic” and “cultural” globalization. This included not only problems of English classes, a number of international students and faculties, or bilingual campus, but also cultural exchanges or sharing spiritual values, such as leadership and empathy.
Problems have been brought up about inactive globalization in HGU. One problem proposed for that was top-down management style of the university, which meant the university is under the control of the president and leadership. “The president is always conscious of globalization of HGU and emphasizes it, but actually the executional part is inactive. The only administration part which actually pursue globalization and enhancing English is OIA,” Lee Youl Jin, president Jang’s secretary and in charge of GCS said. “Students have many chairs and responsiblities, however, there are no personal connection with administers” Kang said.
“As a staff of OIA, I realized many international students were suffering from lack of bilingual services. However, other administrations deny offering bilingual information. That’s why persuasion of the leadership including president and all faculties to share the vision and passion of globalization is needed,” said Jeong Ye Li of OIA. About this issue, everyone in the forum agreed that it is necessary to pursue the globalization in both ways of top-down and bottom-up.
The other problem could be the low participation of international students in school’s various activities. “As the members of the student government, we are willing to help international community and attempting many programs, such as a survey or ‘Art School.’ However, low participation of international students is another difficulty to us,” said Choi Ju Yeong of global department of student government. Korean students who have fear about English are also in need of help. “Many Korean students fear to speak English with foreigners because of the poor English they think, even though it is enough to communicate,” prof. Scott said.
Needs of cultural and fundamental interactions from students also stood out. Emotional bondage between international and Korean communities will achieve the globalization from the students. Kang said about getting helps of many multilingual MKs or international students. “As the learning support programs of HEDC(Handong Education Development Center), when they help Korean students to enhance English skill and could be given some incentives, many international students could be the bridge of both communities,” said Kang.
The problem of cultural events not successfully promoted was pointed out, such as “Culture Night” of the Carmichael College, that could have given an opportunity to interact with each community. Also, there is not much opportunity to international students participate in club activities. “Most clubs, especially musical or acting clubs are hard to accept exchange students since they can do club activity for just one semester. That is major reason of low participation of international students in clubs, rather than language problem.” said Choi. It is required that increasing interesting activities, events, and club activities for international students.

‘Global’ will raise competitiveness of HGU
Prof. Scott said, “Handong University has no future, but HGU has a future. Considering declining population of high school students, and even more Christian students in Korea, Handong need to fulfill our role as a global university to maintain our identity of Christianity.”
People at forum agreed to make an official meeting from next semester, which is an international general assembly committee with representatives of various student communities, such as student major council, student government, ISU, GCS, and OIA, hopefully as well as communities of RCs, clubs, and societies. That meeting is expected to become a place of gathering opinions and negotiating with all departments of students, and it can also impact on the administrations, as a bottom-up attempt. “Before we make a meeting, we can execute our plan from now on if we have a clear content. For example, we can make a chat room right now that can gather opinions from each department. Also, when we are initiating petition project regarding this, I am willing to help communicating with the administrations and the president,” said Lee.
Through this forum, people shared that each organization had struggles with global issues, and they agreed with trying to globalize HGU gradually in each department. “I think we lack the vision of HGU. I hope people who have the power want to make the goal of Handong as a global,” said Julia of ISU. “If the small powerless organization gather, be passionate, and make things happen one after another, the big administrator will join eventually,” said Kang. She also said that she and ISU president will meet the president Jang with these two forums’ conclusions. 

Hye Eon Kim, Guest Reporter