With the inauguration of Park Sung-jong as the new president of the university, which has been vacant since the end of September last year, Korea Aerospace University (hereinafter referred to as Soganggi University) is driving the winds of change by reorganizing the undergraduate system and improving the educational environment.

Starting this year, five existing departments related to elevators have been merged into the Department of Elevator Engineering, which will operate as six departments, and new student facilities such as dormitories, gymnasiums, and auditoriums have been built, and efforts to become a competitive university are becoming visible. In particular, Elevator University, which completed its normalization work last year with a change in the chairman of the board of directors, succeeded in recruiting new students for this year's class last month, acknowledging the university's potential for sustainable development.

According to the university's admissions headquarters, as of the end of both rolling and fixed-term recruitment for the 2013 academic year, 335 students, far exceeding the admission capacity of 320, were finally enrolled, recording an enrollment rate of 104.69 percent. The university analyzes that the excess enrollment rate is due to the high employment rate compared to other universities, despite increasing the capacity to 320, which is 45.5 percent higher than last year (220). Noteworthy is the region of admission of the new students, which is 33% in the Seoul metropolitan area, 16.88% in the Gyeongnam region, and 44.49% in the rest of the country. An official from the university's admissions headquarters explained, "The fact that students from all over the country, mainly from the capital region, are enrolled is proof that Elevator University has specialized in the elevator field."

"The successful recruitment of new students in 2013 is a remarkable growth of our university," said Park Sung-jong, the newly appointed president of the university, adding, "Now that our university has entered a growth stage, we will start strengthening the university's global expansion." He also said, "We will cooperate with the Geochang Elevator Valley project as much as possible and actively work on ways to create mutually beneficial cooperation with passionate SMEs." The following is a summary of a one-on-one interview between this reporter and the new president, Park Sung-jong.

 

Initially, Elevator College was established as a five-department system. However, after running the school, we realized that there were many overlapping fields in each department, and that students often entered the school without understanding the characteristics of each department. Therefore, in 2013, we reorganized the system into a single department called the College of Elevator Engineering by integrating the departments.

Over the past year, the university has endured the pain of cutting to the bone with the goal of stabilizing the university, which is now on the path to full financial and administrative normalization. The results were reflected in the 2013 admissions, which filled the 320-student capacity and admitted dozens of additional students.

Now that the university has stabilized, it is in a position to grow in earnest. We will reorganize the curriculum to make it more field-friendly and strengthen industry-academia cooperation networks to make the most of our advantages as a university specializing in elevators. I can say that 'strengthening our global presence' is our final goal and vision.

 

Last year, our university ranked second in employment rate among 400 universities nationwide. This year, the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology will officially announce the employment rate in June, but according to our internal survey, it has already surpassed last year's rate. Considering that the employment rate is recognized as the competitive rate of a university in the current reality of severe youth unemployment as a social issue, our university has already achieved the highest competitiveness.

 However, if we look at it another way, we believe that our university should not be satisfied with the employment rate alone, as the very existence of a university guarantees a high employment rate. Therefore, as a first step to realize the 'going global' that the university has been striving for since its inception, we have been able to place two of our graduates in Otis in Singapore. With this, we plan to place more students abroad this year and attract more foreign students.

Through these activities, we will strive to become not only the only university in Korea, but also the only university in the world. It will be the basic development direction of our university to become a world-class university in the elevator industry that can be recognized by people in the elevator industry worldwide.

 The industry's criticism has a point. Although our university opened in 2010, last year was the first time we graduated, and this year we graduated our second class, but the number is insignificant.

The reason why there were only 79 graduates in the first batch and 40 in the second batch is that most of the students are either in the military or are just returning to school after completing their military service. However, next year's graduates will be 120, and from now on, the number will increase every year, and in two years, we will have 200 to 300 graduates. I think that by then, it will help solve the industry's labor shortage.

Currently, the elevator industry employs about 10,000 people in manufacturing, installation, and maintenance. Even if a person stays in the industry for an average of 20 years, the industry needs about 500 new workers per year.

Although our university does not have enough graduates to supply the entire new workforce, we are also training skilled workers through programs such as short-term training conducted by the Ministry of Labor and Ministry of Education as a national project, so I think we can alleviate the industry's labor shortage.

 

As you know, Geochang Elevator Industrial Valley is a project that has been steadily promoted by Geochang-gun for the past five years. Initially, the idea of this project came from the Korea Elevator Safety Management Institute, and Geochang-gun and the Korea Elevator Safety Management Institute signed an agreement, but unfortunately, the Korea Elevator Safety Management Institute did not keep its promise to support the elevator valley, including the university, so Geochang-gun alone has invested tens of billions of won to complete it to date.

The creation of Geochang Elevator Valley, which includes our university, an industrial complex specializing in elevators, an elevator R&D center, and elevator companies, is aimed at establishing a comprehensive hub that can provide one-stop technical support for the entire process of R&D and manufacturing of elevator products and establishing an infrastructure for promoting the elevator industry.

Despite numerous challenges, the university has already stabilized with three successful enrollments and two graduations, and the industrial complex is currently home to 23 tenant contractors building factories one after another, all of which are expected to move in by the end of this year. The R&D support center, which will be built with a total investment of 14.4 billion won and will be 100 meters high, is also expected to be completed by the end of the year as the steel frame has been erected, and a logistics support center is also planned to be established with the support of Geochang-gun.

Elevator Valley is a rare type of cluster that is not a central government initiative, but rather a project led by local governments and small and medium-sized enterprises, and it is an attempt that will go down in the history of the Korean elevator industry. The first phase of the cluster will be successfully completed by the end of this year, and the second phase is expected to begin in 2014.

 

 Recently, our university has been focusing on industry-university cooperation projects between the elevator industry and universities, such as the project to foster leading universities for industry-university cooperation organized by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. This is a national project to systematically and efficiently foster the technical cooperation manpower that the industry needs.

The Korean elevator industry has not received policy and financial support from the government to the extent that it has been self-identified as an 'abandoned industry.' However, now that the Elevator Specialized University has been established, various government-supported projects are being carried out through the university, and this situation is not only beneficial to the university, but also to the entire industry that cooperates with the university.

For example, we recently held a 'Family Company Workshop' for employees in the Elevator Industrial Complex to pledge industry-university cooperation at the expense of the government, and we are currently regularly conducting industry-university cooperation workshops on technology development with a number of companies, and we are also conducting surveys with the Korea Elevator Maintenance Industry Cooperative and the Korea Elevator Maintenance Association at the expense of the government. If this is gradually expanded, I think the entire industry will be able to share the benefits, centered on our university.

My hope is that more small and medium-sized enterprises will cooperate with our universities in various ways: engineers will come to our universities to give lectures, company owners will hire new employees from our universities, developers will win government projects with our professors to develop technologies, and small businesses will run their businesses at low cost at our university incubators. I believe the future of our elevator industry will be brighter if we continue to work together.