A decade after protests, SNU weighs first department move to Siheung campus
Seoul National University is considering relocating a graduate department to Siheung, reigniting debate 10 years after student protests shut down the school's original branch campus plans.
The main entrance of Seoul National University in Gwanak District, southern Seoul.JOONGANG ILBO
Seoul National University (SNU) is weighing moving a graduate department to its Siheung Campus in Gyeonggi, a decade after plans for the branch campus set off months of student protests.
The department under review is Molecular Medicine and Biopharmaceutical Sciences at the Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology, the JoongAng Ilbo has learned. If the move is approved, it would be the first academic unit to relocate to the Siheung Campus from the university’s Gwanak and Yeongeon campuses in Seoul.
“The relocation plan has passed the academic operations committee, which reviews curricula and academic administration, and now faces higher-level procedures, including the graduate school’s academic committee and the Senate,” An Dong-hwan, SNU’s vice president for academic affairs, said.
SNU is building up the Siheung Campus as a medical and biohealth cluster and expects the department’s arrival there to speed up cooperation with industry.
“Exchanges with the Baegot Seoul National University Hospital under construction and the medical and bio-related organizations housed in the education cooperation building will help raise expertise,” Shin Young-kee, director of the Siheung Campus, said.
The 800-bed hospital, whose name is tentative, broke ground in September last year and is scheduled to open in 2029.
SNU signed an agreement with the Siheung city government in 2016 to build the branch campus. Since then, whether any colleges or departments would follow has been a question for both local residents and students.
A layout of Seoul National University’s Siheung Campus in Gyeonggi. The university is considering moving its Department of Molecular Medicine and Biopharmaceutical Sciences to the campus.SCREEN CAPTURE
When word of the agreement spread, some students formed a committee demanding that the Siheung Campus plan be withdrawn. They opposed a residential college on the new campus and any move of colleges, divisions or departments there. The administration, they said, had not properly consulted students on a decision as serious as splitting the campus. Students occupied the university’s main administration building for 153 days, from October 2016 to March 2017.
As the dispute grew, then-SNU President Sung Nak-in drew a line. “There will be no compulsory residential college or relocation of educational units that students do not want,” he said.
That left Siheung residents who had hoped the campus would develop the area disappointed. Some complained that they “bought property on news of an SNU campus, but it turned out to be an empty shell.”
Students occupy Seoul National University’s main administration building in Gwanak District, southern Seoul, in protest of the Siheung Campus plan in January 2017.JOONGANG ILBO
The Siheung Campus has since gained a training center, research centers and housing for faculty, staff and graduate students, and the hospital is under construction. But no department, division or college has moved there.
With student opposition dating back to the campus’s earliest days, SNU says it will consult students closely on the plan.
Early last month, the university’s Office of Academic Affairs and the graduate student association surveyed students at the Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology on the move. Respondents worried that the long distance between the Siheung Campus and the Gwanak and Yeongeon campuses, where they now work, would cut them off from existing infrastructure and research. It takes one to two hours to get from Gwanak Campus to Siheung Campus.
“The university should give sufficient notice of the relocation plan in advance and come up with ways to ease the burden of traveling between campuses so that research continuity and conditions for collaboration can be maintained,” the graduate student association said.
“Only current members who want to move will move, and we are also considering having future incoming students and new faculty start their research in Siheung,” Shin said.
The plan stops at this one department for now, the university says.
“Because of the nature of the field, the Department of Molecular Medicine and Biopharmaceutical Sciences carries out research and education at both the Gwanak Campus, home to the College of Engineering, and the Yeongeon Campus, home to the College of Medicine,” Shin said. “It is relatively used to a multicampus system, which is why discussions on its relocation began.”
No other department, graduate or undergraduate, is being considered for a move, he added.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
