Tuition and education rights
Acting Ewha requested for a cut in tuition, an increase in the number of faculty and courses to fit a more reasonable tuition, and a more suitable educational environment. Accordingly, tuition was reduced by 3.5 percent from the spring semester of 2012 for both undergraduate and graduate students. Also, Ewha introduced 116 more courses and increased the number of faculty members by 56 people.
However, some of the promises were left unaccomplished, such as the return of reserved additions and organization of the democratic tuition deliberation committee.
Students’ autonomous rights
One of Acting Ewha’s greatest accomplishments is the simplified space reservation process. More financial aids for space rental fee and heating and cooling expense were provided. However the rental fee for the Lee Sam-Bong Hall and Samsung Hall in the Ewha Campus Complex remains the same.
Communicating with society
Acting Ewha also vitalized communication with the local society by participating in various social activities such as fighting for the rights of temporary and fired workers of Ssangyong Motors.
However, it was largely criticized by students that Acting Ewha put too much effort on the issues outside campus while paying less attention to on-campus issues.
“During Acting Ewha’s term, four out of five posters on the bulletin board were about social issues such as opposing the privatization of the Korean Train Express,” Choi Seo-hyun (Nutritional Science & Food Management, 2) said. “It would have been better if Acting Ewha had dealt with and been concerned more regarding on-campus issues.”
Enhancement in student welfare
Acting Ewha aimed for compromising with the school to open the computer labs on weekends, and increase the number of lockers on campus. However, none of these have been implemented.
“Although the school gave different reasons to why each welfare issue was impracticable, it did not show its will to improve the situation at all,” said Jung Na-wee (Sociology, 4), the president of the 44th SGA.
Overall evaluation on the pledges
During its term, Acting Ewha fully accomplished 11 pledges out of the 34 they made during the election.
Acting Ewha showed the highest fulfillment rate under the communication with society category, but the lowest for the student welfare section.
Aside from the pledges, Acting Ewha also took some distinctive actions such as the 50-day sit-in protest that impelled the school to respond to students’ demands in April.
According to a survey conducted by the Ewha Voice during the sit-in protest, approximately 92.3 percent of students replied that they were not sufficiently informed of the sit-in protest and 87.5 percent of students regarded it as an inefficient way of delivering the students’ voice.
“The purpose of setting up a tent for the sit-in protest was to share the desperate situation for tuition cut with students,” Jung said. “However, we believe that it was not successfully delivered to students.”
Acting Ewha also held the “I Wish” week of collective action to publicize issues on campus and pressure the school to solve the problems from Sept. 24 to 27. During the “I Wish” week, Acting Ewha promoted the grand four demands: Tuition cuts, students’ autonomous rights protection, student education environment improvement and welfare improvement.
“Although the members of the SGA change every year, the fundamental goal and purpose of its existence is always the same: To make students have a sense of ownership of the school,” Jung said. “Therefore, I hope the next SGA will keep this in mind and always try its best to act with students.”
Lee Sang-ha
banilab5748@ewhain.net