While students were relieving stress amounted during the vacation, the Ewha administration was busy reconstructing several buildings and adding new services which will greet students in the upcoming semester.

▲ A new computer lab on the first floor of the Student Union Building greets students.

The Student Union Building  

 

After two years of planning, the Student Union now has been upgraded to better suit the need of the students.  

 

The first floor is now exclusively organized for the convenience for students. The computer lab has been moved to the first floor where the Shinhan Bank was located before it moved to the Ewha Campus Complex. The student lounge located in the basement has also been set up on the first floor and broadened with upgraded facilities for students to sit and eat or chat. Furthermore, the sleeping room which used to be on the third floor, is now located on the first floor to increase accessibility.  

 

“Since a lot of students use the first floor of the building, we newly arranged the facilities of the first floor mainly for students,” said Lee Yoon-kyu, a staff member of theStudentWelfareCenter .  

 

In addition, to strengthen the unity of the school clubs, all 67 student club rooms, which were in different buildings, have moved into the Student Union Building. 

The third floor has now been changed as a floor where students receive consulting. The Ewha Student Counseling Center and the Center for Gender Affairs are now both on the third floor next to one another. Students who want to get counseling can contact counselors without attracting excessive attention.  

 

▲ Ramps shine in the ECC study room.

The Ewha Campus Complex (ECC)  

 

The ECC, which finished its final construction last semester, will not disappoint students if they are looking for something new. According to Lim Jung-im, a staff member at the Office of Financial Affairs, Our Home, the food chain which operates the food court on the first floor of the ECC, is planning “something special” for its structure and menu. The food court would be operated similarly to those in department stores where people can choose from a variety of food choices. 

In addition, the ECC’s small theater has opened and a two-week film festival is going to be held through September 3 under the theme of “all the animations in the world.” The theater will be open even during vacations and exam periods and approximately five films will be screened a day. It costs seven thousand won per ticket, but students and teachers at Ewha can pay a reduced price of six thousand won. 

Also desk lamps have been installed in the free reading rooms in the ECC to allow study under bright light. “This allows students to protect their eyesight, and feel more comfortable when reading books,” said a staff member of the Centennial Library.

 The New Engineering Building  

 

A new engineering building has been built beside the original engineering building (Asan Hall) to expand space for both educational purposes and convenience facilities. “After the department of Food Science & Technology was created in 2006, there was a shortage of space in Asan Hall. We had to distribute offices for professors over a lot of other different buildings,” said Yoo Sun-ja, a staff member working at the administrative office of the college of engineering. 

The new engineering building includes lecture rooms, laboratories, professors’ offices, and also a library, reading rooms, and a student cafeteria are located. The new building also capitalized on its green surroundings and provides students with the park like tracts of land as rest area. 

Since the Engineering Building is on the outskirts of the campus, students at the college of engineering had a hard time using the in-campus facilities. “To minimize such inconvenience,” Yu said, “the long-cherished goal of instituting students’ conveniences such as reading rooms and student cafeteria has been resolved.” 

The two engineering buildings are connected by stairs from the first floor to the fourth floor and thus the movement between them is quick and easy.

 Ewha Cyber Campus Updated  

 

Taking into account the requests made by professors and students, the Ewha Cyber Campus has been updated with a new design and the technical services. After establishing the Cyber Campus system in 1999, the Multimedia Education Institute (MEI) has upgraded the system regularly to meet the changing needs of users. The Cyber Campus was last upgraded in 2004, and this is its fifth major upgrade. 

“We take the requests of professors and students to make users feel more comfortable using the system and advance the efficiency in operating the system,” said Nam Jung-hyun, a staff member of the MEI. 

Several functions were added to aid both students and professors in carrying out their classes, including a mobile service that will allow students to check the Cyber Campus with their cell phones. Besides, new video and photo album bulletin boards have been added to the options professors can include in the menu bar. They allow students to upload video and picture files. Professors have also been given the option of offering online lectures and checking students’ attendance through an online listing of names and ID numbers. 

The Cyber Campus has made it easier for foreign students to use the system by implementing an English version. And team projects can now be arranged more easily as registering groups has become simpler and group bulletin boards can now be created for each group. This allows students to create not just one team on the Cyber Campus but more than two, if they have more than one team projects in one semester. 

The functions of the message box have been upgraded. When sending a message, users can now freely change fonts and also add different kinds of symbols to express their emotions. 

The improvement of the Cyber Campus is not only for Ewha students. The E-learning class website, which is linked from the menu located on the upper side of the Cyber Campus, is open not only to students but also to people outside of Ewha.  

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