Seoul National University (SNU; Korean, 서울대학교, Seoul Daehakgyo, colloquially Seouldae) is a national research university located in Seoul, the capital of Korea. Since its founding in 1946, Seoul National University has been widely considered to be the most prestigious university in the country.
It is located on three campuses: the main campus is in Gwanak and two additional campuses in Daehangno and Suwon. The university comprises sixteen colleges, one graduate school, and nine professional schools. The student body consists of nearly 17,000 undergraduate and 11,000 graduate students. According to data compiled by KEDI, the university spends more on its students per capita than any other university in the country that enrolls at least 10,000 students.
Seoul National University holds a memorandum of understanding with over 700 academic institutions in 40 countries, theWorld Bank, and a general academic exchange program with the University of Pennsylvania. The Graduate School of Business offers dual master's degrees with Duke University, ESSEC Business School, and Peking University, double-degrees with the MIT Sloan School of Management and Yale School of Management,and MBA-, MS-, and PhD-candidate exchange programs with universities in ten countries on four continents. The university's international faculty headcount is 242 or 4% of the total. Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen and Fields Medal recipient Hironaka Heisuke are on the faculty roster.
Pre-establishment
Seoul National University originates from various education institutions which were established by King Gojong of the Joseon Dynasty. Several of them were integrated into various colleges when later Seoul National University was founded.
To modernize the country, Gojong initiated the establishment of modern higher education institutions. By means of the issue of a royal order, the law academy Beopkwan Yangseongso has been founded in 1895. It produced 209 graduates including the later envoy Yi Jun. Hanseong Sabeomhakgyo (established in 1895), a training school for teachers and Euihakkyo (1899), a medical school, are also considered the origins of respected colleges.
After the proclamation of the Empire of Korea in 1897, Gojong, meanwhile emperor, was motivated to create more modern education institutions. In 1899, a medical school was established. This school changed its name several times to Daehan Euiwon Gyoyukbu and Gyeongseong Euihak Jeonmunhakgyo (Gyeongseong Medical College) and finally became College of Medicine of Seoul National University. In 1901, a department for nursing was established, which was the forerunner of the later College of Nursing.
During the Japanese rule, Keijō Imperial University was established as one of Japan's nine imperial universities. After World War II and the independence of Korea, the name of the university was changed from Keijō Teikoku Daigaku (京城帝国大学) to Gyeongseong Daehak (경성대학, 京城大學, Gyeongseong University). The Hanja letters, that were used in the name, were pronounced in the Korean reading and the attribute "imperial" was removed.
Establishment
Seoul National University was founded on August 27, 1946 by merging ten institutions of higher education around the Seoul area. The schools which have been merged were:
- Gyeongseong University (Gyeongseong Daehakgyo, 경성대학)
- Gyeongseong College of Education (Gyeongseong Sabeomhakgyo, 경성사범학교)
- Gyeongseong Women's College of Education (Gyeongseong Yeoja Sabeomhakgyo, 경성여자사범학교)
- Gyeongseong Law College (Gyeongseong Beophak Jeonmunhakgyo, 경성법학전문학교)
- Gyeongseong Industrial College (Gyeongseong Gongeop Jeonmunhakgyo, 경성공업전문학교)
- Gyeongseong Mining College (Gyeongseong Gwangsan Jeonmunhakgyo, 경성광산전문학교)
- Gyeongseong Medical College (Gyeongseong Euihak Jeonmunhakgyo, 경성의학전문학교)
- Suwon Agriculture College (Suwon Nongnim Jeonmunhakgyo, 수원농림전문학교)
- Gyeongseong College of Economics (Gyeongseong Gyeongje Jeonmunhakgyo, 경성경제전문학교)
- Gyeongseong Dentistry College (Gyeongseong Chigwa Euihak Jeonmunhakgyo, 경성치과의학전문학교)
The first president was Harry Bidwell Ansted. For over a year and a half, there was a protest movement by students and professors against the law of the U.S. military government in Korea merging colleges. Finally, 320 professors were fired and more than 4950 students left the school. The university's second president was Lee Choon-ho (이춘호, 李春昊), who served beginning in October 1947.
The College of Law was founded by merging the law department of Kyŏngsŏng University with Kyŏngsŏng Law College. The university absorbed Seoul College of Pharmacy in September 1950, as the College of Pharmacy. This had previously been a private institution.
During the Korean War, the university was occupied by North Korea and Seoul National University Hospital Massacre occurred, then temporarily merged with other universities in South Korea, located in Busan.
Relocation
Originally, the main campus (which embraced the College of Humanities and Sciences and College of Law) was in Dongsung-dong, Jongno. After the construction of a new main campus in Gwanak in February 1975, most colleges of the university relocated to the new Gwanak Campus between 1975 and 1979. Part of the former main campus in Jongno is still used by the College of Medicine, the College of Dentistry and the College of Nursing and is now called Yongon Campus.
In 2012 lawmakers reported that the ruling Saenuri Party, ahead of the December presidential elections, seriously proposed a plan to relocate the university to the newly established special autonomous Sejong City. The move came as part of an overall effort to decentralize the capital's governmental apparatus. Originally the national government had approached the university in 2009 to host the building of a satellite campus. It was reported the following year that the university had considered withdrawing from the Sejong plan.
Campus
Seoul National University occupies two Seoul-based, one-based Pyeong Chang campuses: the Gwanak Campus is situated in 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu; and the Yongon Campus is north of the Han River in Daehangno, Jongno District; and the new Pyeong Chang campus in pyeongchang-gun, Gangwon-do.
The main campus in Gwanak-gu was established in 1975 by the SNU Comprehensive Plan. At present, there are about 200 buildings, over half of which have been constructed since 1990. The school’s medical, dental and nursing schools, as well as the main branch of Seoul National University Hospital, are on the former site of Gyeongseong University’s medical department at the Yongon Campus. In 2003, the Colleges of Agricultural and Life Sciences and Veterinary Medicine were relocated from Suwon to Gwanak. In 2009, the Pyeong Chang Campus were established with three division: the Institute of Green Bio Science and Technology, the Graduate School of International Agriculture Technology, and the University Animal Farm.
Location
Gwanak Campus, the main campus, is located in the southern part of Seoul. It is served by its own subway station on Line 2. Yeongeon Campus, the medical campus, is on Daehangno (University Street), northeast Seoul. The defunct Suwon Campus, the agricultural campus, also known as the Sangnok Campus (Evergreen Campus), used to be located in Suwon, about 40 km south of Seoul. The agricultural campus moved to Gwanak in Autumn 2004, but some research facilities still remain in Suwon.
New plans
In February 2010 Seoul National initiated a memorandum with the city of Siheung to establish a global campus. Signed with the city's mayor and governor of Gyeonggi for administrative assistance, the university acquired 826 thousand square meters (204 acres) of property in the west-coast economic zone, near the Songdo International Business District, Pyeongtaek harbor, international airport, seaport.
The land acquisition will increase the university's size by 58% over its current 1.4 million square meters (350 acres) to 2.2 million square meters (550 acres) and headcount by an expected 10,000 people or 33% of its current figure. Along with lecture halls and additional liberal arts and graduate courses, the initiative will add a medical complex including a research hospital and training centre, research centre for dentistry and clinical pharmacology, dormitories, apartments, an international middle and high school, and other facilities. Planning to open the international campus in 2014, the university intends to share the initiative with other regional national institutions.
Reputation
A KEDI study found that the university's name-value translates into wages that are on average about 12 percent higher than that of any other Korean university.SNU graduates dominate South Korea's academics, government, politics and business. Approximately one in four Korean university presidents studied for their undergraduate degree at Seoul National. Between 2003 and 2009, more students who graduated from science high schools and received presidential scholarships matriculated at Seoul National University than at eight other leading universities combined. The concentration of SNU graduates in legal, official, and political circles is particularly high. Two-thirds of South Korean judges are SNU graduates, although the country's judicial appointment system is based solely on open competitive examinations. In government, slightly more than half of South Korea's elite career foreign service corps, recruited on the basis of a competitive higher diplomatic service exam, are from SNU. Similarly, among the high-ranking government officials who were recruited by an equally competitive higher civil service exam, SNU graduates take up more than 40 percent. On the political side, four out of seven presidential candidates in 2002 were SNU graduates.
International Rankings
In 2015 Thomson-Reuters ranked Seoul National University as the 31st most innovative institution in the world.QS World University Ranking (2014/15) considered it 31st in the world and 3rd in Asia, whilst it was 4th in the independent regional QS Asian University Rankings (2013). The university was 4th in Asia and 50th in the world by the 2014-15 Times Higher Education World University Rankings when its World Reputation Rankings considered it to be 26th globally. Moreover, ARWU (2013) regarded SNU to be among 101st-150th worldwide and the best in the country.
QS University Subject Rankings (2015): 16th, modern languages; 17th, pharmacy & pharmacology; 19th, architecture, chemical engineering; 21st, materials science, chemistry; 24th, civil & structural engineering; 27th, dentistry, 30th, mechanical engineering; 31st, electrical & electronic engineering; 32nd, sociology; 33rd, business & management studies; 36th, politics & international studies; 41st, law & legal studies, linguistics, physics & astronomy, veterinary science; 42nd, computer science & information systems; 43rd,accounting & finance; 46th, statistics & operational research; 47th, art & design; 48th, medicine; 49th, mathematics; 50th, history &archaeology.
The institute was ranked 20th in publications by a 2008 analysis of data from the Science Citation Index, and the following year ranked 8th in the world in clinical trials. In 2011, the Mines ParisTech : Professional Ranking World Universities reported that Seoul National is ranked 10th in the world in terms of the number of alumni holding CEO positions in Fortune 500 enterprises. Seoul National University also had the third highest number of students who went on to earn Ph.Ds in American institutions in 2006.[
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