The first semester of 2016 in Kyonggi University was quite eventful. There were big conflicts between the school and students, and between the student council and students. Those conflicts were mainly about the PRIME project and the usage of the student union fee which was paid by dormitory students to support their living in the dormitory. The reason why those problems happened was because of a lack of communication. Especially, since the PRIME project was a large-scale restructuring, abolishing or combining and changing the names of some majors, the school should have let students know what was going on and reached an agreement. However, most of the students did not receive direct information about it even after the school applied for the PRIME project. Why aren't students who are closely related to the school provided with information about school issues?

Ultimately, Kyonggi University applied for the PRIME project which was promoted by the government but was eliminated during the first step, the written evaluation. How come this result happened? There were three principles of the PRIME project promotion strategy. First, universities should be given autonomy. Second, the project should be agreed on by all the members of the university. Third, there should be financial support for pre-emptive efforts of the university. However, there was no consultation between Kyonggi University and KGU students, which violates the second principle. Students even strongly demanded a retraction of the project's application. Nonetheless, the school did apply for it and that was reported in the media. The report leaded the school to get low scores in the evaluation for the process of agreement among members of the university. That is why Kyonggi University was not chosen.

We had an interview with a student of Kyonggi University about how much that person knows about the PRIME project and how well the school communicates

with the interviewee.

Did you ever hear a progress explanation for the PRIME project?

I knew about that at the peak time when the PRIME project had issues. However, I did not find out through the school about that; I found out about that by myself.

Do you think the school and students communicate with each other properly? Did the school get students' agreement?

I do not think there was communication. My department was integrated this year, but the school did not get students' agreement. In the case of other universities, students demonstrated and wrote hand-written posters to prevent course merges which were caused by the PRIME project. When I saw this kind of behavior, I did not think the schools got their students' consent, before making changes.

Furthermore, the school does not provide relevant school information under the pretense of confidentiality. How far do you think our right to know goes as people who pay tuition?

I think the main agents of the school are the students. Because students pay a lot of tuition and school is operated with it, they should know specifically about school's situation. There have been a lot of cases in which the student council members of the Seoul campus have gone to the Suwon campus to ask the school for information based on their right to know. Students should also express their own right to know. We wanted to interview not only students but also the school officials that planned the PRIME project. However, the school officials declined to be interviewed because that project is finished.

As you can see from the three principles of the PRIME project promotion strategy, communication among the school, students, and professors is indispensable. It was not just important for the PRIME project, but is also important when implementing consolidation, downsizing, and so on. The school should stop ignoring the rights of students and carry out a proper procedure when considering change regardless of the effort required. We just hope that the school and students will have proper communication and compromise, which will lead the school to a better place. Let's do this for each other's sake!