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Korea University president Lee Pil-sang, who is under fire for allegedly plagiarizing the theses of his students, claims that a group of professors pressured him to step down. He said Friday that three professors at the university threatened him that they would investigate his theses and inform the press. They pressured him to feign illness and avoid being present at his swearing-in ceremony. Lee said these professors most likely influenced the decisions of a fact-finding committee that investigated his alleged plagiarism and demanded the names of the committee members be revealed.
One of the professors whose name has been mentioned, denied the accusations, saying he and others professors merely discussed matters involving Lee out of concern and were being misrepresented as having ulterior motives. Regarding the alleged pressure on Lee to feign illness, he said they recommended that the best thing for Lee to do was to break off contact with others through hospitalization.
The board of directors at Korea University will decide the fate of president Lee this Friday. But as he faces increasing demands to step down, the rift is reportedly deepening between those who support him and those who oppose him. In a faculty meeting last week to determine the validity of the plagiarism charges leveled against Lee, his supporters and detractors clashed, making it impossible to reach a common stance. The rift that formed during the election of the university president is deepening.
Such rifts are a common sight at Korean universities whenever they elect presidents. Even after a president has been elected, the side effects linger. This phenomenon is the result of direct elections for university president. Korea is probably the only country where the president is elected by professors and professors continue to remain silent, even though they see the painful divisions created by this system again and again.
A president elected by professors cannot implement reforms that go against interests of his supporters during the election. One of the main reasons why Korean universities claim to be making efforts at globalization but are unable to implement reforms is because of this relationship between the president and professors. It is time for Korean universities to scrap the system. As long as academia sticks to this populist system, the future of our universities remains bleak.
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