▲ Illustration by Kim Ji-sun.Ewha has announced a restructuring plan that, by 2007, will create three new colleges tentatively named the College of Art, the College of Health Science, and the Undergraduate College. This plan was drawn up by the university faculty. Discussions, explorations, and evaluations are continuing, and new options and views are emerging.
   As part of its ongoing plan to restructure the university and make it more internationally competitive, the Ewha administration has released its latest set of recommendations for reorganizing the school's component colleges. The plans, which were developed by the faculty, but which are still being debated by faculty, administration, and students, call for the establishment of three large colleges that combine several current colleges and departments in new ways. Tentative names for the colleges are the College of Health Science, the College of Art, and the Undergraduate College.
   The College of Health Science, which is expected to be formed by 2007 in connection with the dissolution of the College of Human Ecology, will include the current College of Nursing Science, the Departments of Food and Nutritional Sciences and Health Education, and the Division of Exercise, Sport, and Leisure Science. A newly established minor will tentatively be named Health and Welfare Studies. The administration's reasoning is that these departments and divisions stem from similar disciplinary origins, investigate similar problems, and produce similar representations of basic and applied research, and thus have excellent potential for collaboration if placed under the same college.
   According to the plan, the new College of Art will include the current College of Arts and Design, the College of Music, the Department of Dance, and the Department of Clothing and Textiles from the College of Human Ecology. By joining these departments under one administrative roof, the school wishes to create distinctive and interdisciplinary art education. In addition to combining colleges and departments, this new entity will offer several new minors such as the Study of Musicals, Arts Management, and Film Studies. The school hopes to keep studies of the arts in touch with the rapid change of tastes and preferences that have come with globalization. In order to develop the next generation of students to lead the world of arts, the school hopes to educate students as well-rounded leaders who understand integrated notions of the traditional and social context of art, and have insight into the art market of the future.
   The Undergraduate College, if formed according to the plan, will be the first ever to be established in Korea, and will combine the current Colleges of Liberal Arts, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences into a single college. This Undergraduate College will be independently managed but will maintain the current College of Liberal Arts, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences as separate subdivisions. The intention of this plan is to attract more competitive students to Ewha and to strengthen the level of education in a common core of general studies.
   However, there has been strong opposition from students and alumnae who do not wish to lose their traditional identities in the restructuring. Moreover, some students expressed resentment that the school made a unilateral announcement of its plan without any discussion with student representatives. Students in the College of Music staged a demonstration in front of the Main Hall on October 13 to express their concern that the school's reformation plan was focusing too much on the utility of studies in the arts and not enough on the arts themselves.
저작권자 © Ewha Voice 무단전재 및 재배포 금지