Kookmin University (President JEONG, SEUNG RYUL) held a ceremony to celebrate its 78th anniversary on Monday, October 14, at the Academic Conference Hall of the Headquarters Building. The event was attended by President Jung Seung-ryeol, professors, staff, students, alumni, and other members of the university community, as well as about 300 guests.

President JEONG, SEUNG RYUL said, “Since its founding by Dr. Shin Ik-hee Shin of Haegong, who was the main pillar of the provisional government, the university has been steadily developing with the generous support of Dr. Kim Sung-gon of Sungkok.” “The foundation of this growth has been the entrepreneurial spirit of Dr. Kim Sung-gon, and we have been discovering, characterizing, and differentiating academic fields that are suitable for this,” he said.

“In addition to winning various business orders related to future high-tech industries such as future automobiles and next-generation communications, our university has also been recognized for its potential in sustainable fields such as the environment, global coexistence, and peaceful reunification,” said Jeong. ”It is the direction we should take in the future to lead academic research and demonstrate leadership in future discourse in each of these fields for future generations.”

“In terms of departments, the boundaries between majors such as non-majors, autonomous majors, and convergence majors are being broken down, and in terms of university organizations, the need for integration of work environments and information sharing is being highlighted, and the boundaries between campuses across regions and the world are being broken down,” he said. ”Ultimately, Kookmin University will proactively respond to building an educational ecosystem without boundaries.”

This year's opening ceremony was organized in a way that all members of the campus could enjoy together, breaking away from the conventional format of history reports, speeches, and toasts. In particular, students from the Department of Music sang with the Jeongneung Angels Children's Choir, a new type of special performance that coexists with the local community, and received a great response.

The event also included the awarding of merit awards to recognize the efforts of various departments, including professors, outstanding thesis, staff, industry-academic cooperation, and alumni, as well as special merit awards, national talents, and national service awards.

President JEONG, SEUNG RYUL's 78th Anniversary Congratulatory Remarks

Today marks the 78th anniversary of the founding of Woori National University, the first private university after the liberation of Korea. I would like to express my sincere gratitude and welcome to all of you who are here to commemorate and celebrate this momentous occasion.

As you all know, Kookmin University was first founded after the liberation of Korea by Dr. Shin Ik-hee Haegong, a leading member of the Provisional Government, and later acquired and generously supported by entrepreneur Sungok Kim Sung-gon. We believe that this proud history of establishment and development has always made our members love the university with pride. 

The foundation of Kookmin University's steady growth has been our strategy of specialization and differentiation based on entrepreneurship, which is the nurturing philosophy of Sungkyunkwan, and our efforts to discover academic fields and cultivate talents that are in line with the trend of the times. This year, Kookmin University received the highest grade of S in the performance evaluation of the University Innovation Support Project for the second consecutive year, and is becoming a great university that is receiving good evaluations not only for winning and expanding business in high-tech fields, which are promising areas for the future, but also in ESG-related fields such as environmental issues and global coexistence. In addition, we successfully launched the Graduate School of Global Peace and Unification, a specialized graduate school, in September of this year to address the fields of unification and global peace, which we have always been interested in. These efforts demonstrate our commitment to leading academic research and taking leadership in future discourse in key areas for future generations, such as the environment and unification.

It is said that the future will be a world without boundaries. If we look at schools alone, concepts such as non-majors, autonomous majors, and convergence that go beyond the traditional departmental system continue to be emphasized, and organizations are also emphasizing the need for workplace integration and information sharing. Even the boundaries separating on-campus and off-campus, domestic and international are blurring. The concept of convergence and sharing rather than a single major, an on-campus learning environment, or a unique work environment is the trend of the times. As such, our university is implementing various policies to eliminate boundaries in various fields such as education, research, and administration. As part of this, the free major system will be implemented from next year, and 30% of all freshmen will be free majors. In addition, the Global Campus Project, launched as part of our new internationalization strategy, aims to foster global talent with practical skills that can be put to work immediately overseas, and we are currently sending our students to the Volkswagen Group's 42 Wolfsburg campus in Germany in collaboration with Volkswagen Group Korea, while simultaneously establishing a boot camp in Irvine, California, USA, which has just graduated its first batch of students. Our students' achievements are reflected in global competition wins and internships and jobs at global companies, clearly demonstrating why we are creating an educational ecosystem without boundaries. Thanks to these efforts, Kookmin University was ranked among the top 10 universities in Korea in the university brand evaluation last summer.

To all of you who have supported and loved Kookmin University, I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude and promise that we will do our best to make Kookmin University the standard of higher education by working even harder to foster entrepreneurial people*.

May health and happiness always be with you all. Yours sincerely.