Between Sinchon and Songdo

The semester has begun and the scale of Yonsei International Campus (YIC) has become bigger than ever; approximately 4,300 freshmen and the students of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Field (HASS), Integrated Science & Engin. Field (ISE) and College of Pharmacy are currently living in YIC located in Songdo. However, the linkage between the Sinchon Campus and YIC is being questioned as the students living in YIC or those taking classes from two different campuses are facing transportation issues. Student number has doubled compared to last year, whereas the budget for shuttle bus remains stationary. Every day, nineteen shuttle buses depart from YIC to Sinchon Campus and eighteen shuttle buses depart from Sinchon to YIC. Compared to last semester when seventeen buses departed from YIC to Sinchon and another seventeen from Sinchon to YIC, the number of shuttle bus has increased slightly. In certain time periods, such as Friday afternoons, the competition gets fierce; students either flock to reserve the shuttle bus or have to wait in a queue to catch a bus. "Although I am currently taking all of my classes in Sinchon Campus, I still often go to YIC to meet freshmen and friends. While I go back and forth the two campuses, I often cannot reserve the shuttle bus and have to take M-bus," said Kim Ji-hoon (Soph., UIC, Dept. of Econ.) As Kim mentioned, M-bus is a possible alternative though it takes longer than the shuttle bus to get between the campuses and the allocation interval is quite long. In order to make the M-bus a better alternative, Students’ Union, Solution requested the president and director of CheongRyong Transportation Company for an increased supply of M-bus, which received a positive reply. Since the connection to Sinchon is crucial in stabilizing YIC and is directly related to the right of Yonseians to learn, there needs to be more efforts to effectively accommodate the doubled demand.  

Delay in a strike of irregular workers  

On March 3, 2014, irregular workers of Yonsei University, who are indirectly hired by service companies, not by the school itself, staged a one-day strike for better working conditions and raising payments. Their strike was a warning message to the school and service companies to seriously consider their declaration for human rights. On March 9, these irregular workers of Yonsei University – who are in charge of schools’ cleaning, parking and security – announced that they would go on a strike for an indefinite period starting on March 12 along with 12 other universities, including Kyunghee University, Korea University, Hongik University and Dongduk Womens University. All of the irregular workers in the 12 universities are members of Seoul-Inchon branch of Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. However, on March 10, irregular workers of Kyunghee University finally succeeded in reaching an agreement on improving their working conditions with the school – hence, their hourly wage was raised from 5,700 to 6,200 won and monthly food expenses was raised from 70,000 to 90,000 won. Upon hearing this positive news, irregular workers of Yonsei University, Dongduk Womens University and Duksung Womens University tentatively decided to postpone the previously planned strike. They claimed that although they deferred their strike, they would never cease their struggles for human rights. Moreover, they added that if the school and service companies continue to avoid responsibilities and ignore their demands, then they would fight until their requirements are fully satisfied.

25th Women’s Student Association, Approval of the Emergency Planning Committee  

   The agenda on continual of the Women’s Student Association Emergency Planning Committee was approved in the 9th Central Managing Committee on March 4th, followed by Expanded Managing Committee on March 13th. There was no candidate for the 25th Women’s Student Association on November, 2013 when the Students’ Union and the Women’s Student Association elections were held. When there is no candidate in November, the next election takes place on March according to Student Regulations. However, both the Central and Expanded Committees have assumed that there probably will not be a candidate for new Association, at least for this year. Lately, lack of interest in Women’s Student Association has been mentioned repeatedly. In 2007, there has been an argument that the Women’s Student Association is no longer needed in Yonsei University. Today, Yonsei University is the only university among the SKY universities to have the Women’s Student Association. Extreme feminism, undemocratic structure, and the lack of interaction with the students were the main reasons for removal of the association in other universities. So the Committee decided to let the previous association, the Ho, take on and continue its’ duties for another year considering that it has done its’ job well. The committee decided the Women’s Student Association will stand as Emergency Planning Committee system, doing only indispensable works such as acknowledging gender-sensitive issues, interacting with both the male and female students and so on to lessen the Association’s burden.