[KS] Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) opens for business

[Afostercarter at aol.com]

Dear friends and colleagues,
 
The long-awaited and oft-postponed full opening
of Pyongyang University of Science and Technology 
(PUST) seems finally to be imminent. See article  below.
 
Surely one must wish them well. The founder's zeal and 
resilience are quite extraordinary, as  recounted here:
_http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/14/magazines/fortune/pyongyang_university_nort
h_korea.fortune/index.htm_ 
(http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/14/magazines/fortune/pyongyang_university_north_korea.fortune/index.htm) 
 
I wonder who the lucky faculty might be?
 
Best wishes
Aidan FC
 
 
 
Aidan  Foster-Carter 
Honorary Senior Research  Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea, Leeds 
University, UK 
E: _afostercarter at aol.com_ (mailto:afostercarter at aol.com)      
_afostercarter at yahoo.com_ (mailto:afostercarter at yahoo.com)    W: _www.aidanfc.net_ 
(http://www.aidanfc.net/)      
Flat 1,  40 Magdalen Road,  Exeter,  Devon,  EX2 4TE,  England,  UK 
T: (+44, no 0)     07970 741307 (mobile);     01392 257753 (home)    
Skype:  Aidan.Foster.Carter   Twitter:  fcaidan   
Recent  articles, broadcasts and activities on Korea: 
Oct  22    The  Sociology of Kim Jong-eun. Published as “For the Kims, the 
weakest link is family”  Asia Times Online    
_http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/LJ22Dg01.html_ (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/LJ22Dg01.html)  
_______________________________________________________
 
_http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2010/10/113_75099.html_ 
(http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2010/10/113_75099.html) 
 
10-24-2010 16:49                          
Sicence & tech univ. opens  Pyongyang 
By Kim Se-jeong 
The South Korean-NGO run Pyongyang  University of Science and Technology 
(PUST) begins its operation today.   
Kim Jin-kyung, a South Korean national and  the university president, told 
Yonhap Friday that “All facilities are ready to  run, and so is the faculty”
 to teach students. An initial group of 23 professors  from the United 
States and Europe have arrived in Pyongyang last weekend, and  200 students – in 
under-graduate, graduate and post-graduate programs – are on  campus 
waiting for the semester to start. 
Four professors are known to have been there  since June, assisting 40 
students in research.  
The official opening was long overdue.   
The construction for the school was  completed in September last year, but, 
due to sudden interventions from the  North Korean authorities in school 
management, the opening kept getting  delayed. 
Unlike the initial agreement, North Korea  abruptly requested the president 
accept its recommendations in recruiting  faculty members.  
The Kim Il-sung statue was also erected in  April, violating an initial 
agreement that any political message would be absent  on campus. 
Earlier this month, Yoon Sang-hyun from the  ruling Grand National Party 
said that a research center for the North’s “juche”  or theory of 
self-reliance opened on campus, and urged all the public and  private money for the 
PUST should be stopped. The idea of PUST was conceived in  2001, and the former 
Roh Moo-hyun administration donated 1 billion won to  construction.  
Encouraged by the success of the Yanbian  University of Science and 
Technology (YUST) in Yanji, Northeast China, North  Korea requested Kim, the 
president of the YUST, to open a similar institute in  Pyongyang.  
Authorization from the North came  immediately and construction began. 
Finance came mainly from non-profit  organizations in South Korea and other 
countries, including the Northeast Asia  Foundation for Education and Culture.  
According to its website (http://pust.kr),  the university has a capacity 
to facilitate 2,000 undergraduate students and 600  graduate.  
And it aspires to recruit 250 faculty  members over the next 10 years.  
The university offers programs on  information and communication 
technology, industry and management, agriculture,  food and life science, 
architecture, engineering and construction, and public  healthcare. More than 10 South 
Korean universities have signed an agreement on  collaboration.  
skim at koreatimes.co.kr
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