The by-election for the Student Council of the University of Seoul (UOS) was held March 28 to 30. Directly impacted by COVID-19, the previous regular election in December 2021 was invalidated due to the low voter turnout, which failed to reach the threshold of 40 percent. Thus, the legitimate Student Council has been vacant since January 2021, with an emergency committee taking its place until April, followed by the Acting Student Council “Light” (Sinho in Korean).

 Therefore, this election was an opportunity to vote for the 58th student president and vice president. The role of the Student Council is to form an organization from a position of autonomy and participation. It has to participate actively in educational activities and decision-making authorized by democratic student autonomy. Moreover, the Student Council must create a public forum to solve and discuss the major issues of the university.

 Without a Student Council, it becomes harder to protect student rights and speak on behalf of the students regarding the university’s academic and administrative issues. For this reason, a legitimate Student Council is crucial. Fortunately, the voter turnout exceeded 40 percent, sufficient to validate the vote and elect new officers.

 The UOS Times interviewed the president of the Student Council “Tomorrow” (Naeil in Korean), Ryu Chang-hyeon (Dept. of Geoinformatics, ’17) for details about the recent election and student autonomy.

Q1. What was the reason you ran for the office in the 58th election?

A1. I decided to run for office to invigorate student autonomy in UOS and shape a better future for the university. I intend to return the student society, after almost two years of vacancy, back to the right track.

Q2. Could you explain what the Student Council Tomorrow is focusing on?

A2. The Student Council Tomorrow’s commitments are largely divided into four agendas. We prepared the pledges of “student autonomy,” “culture,” “education,” and “small satisfaction” to promote student culture and rights in UOS.

 The commitments under each section are “a Student Council to manage the election of the President of the University” for student autonomy; bring back Daedongje, the UOS festival, for culture; and for education, the Student Council has plans to propose policies for the coming 8th Local Elections on behalf of UOS. Si-bam, a night market in UOS, will be available for the small satisfaction agenda.

Q3. Were there any difficulties during the election campaign?

A3. The process of preparation for the election went smoothly. The election campaign headquarters comprised three separate teams: the campaign strategy team, the policy team, and the promotional team. All three departments worked actively and flexibly. They worked very hard, so they faced no difficulties or challenges.

 However, one thing I think is unfortunate is that it was not easy to approach the students due to online and non-face-to-face classes. This is a little unsatisfactory. I really wanted to meet students offline.

Q4. Could you explain the difference between the Student Council and the Acting Council, and why a Student Council is necessary?

A4. In the Acting Student Council or the emergency committee, the president is designated through the votes of the student representatives, thus giving them less authority to claim rights or participate in budgeting. Being elected directly by the votes of the students, the president of the Student Council is empowered to claim the rights of students in UOS.

Q5. Let us inquire about the recent controversy of the election. In the process of promoting the election, students received a message from the campaign headquarters that encouraged them to consent to the use of personal information as a requirement for voting. However, the message asked students to make sympathy marks after submitting the application of personal information requirement for voting. Was the request made with the intention of directly identifying which students gave such consent?

A5. This was not intended to identify students who agreed to give personal information. In fact, the campaign headquarters did not examine the survey to see who made marks at all. I assumed that it would be hard to encourage students to give consent or confirm who had done so, so I just wanted to encourage them to do so more easily.

 Mr. Ryu claimed to have found suspicious signs of embezzlement in September 2021. According to a brief update from Ryu, the alleged “embezzlement” turned out to be merely a misunderstanding between stakeholders. However, the update lacked details on the result of the investigation, leaving many questions among students. To date, past articles or notices that mistakenly confirmed the embezzlement as true have not been corrected or deleted. Mr. Ryu declined to answer questions on the issue so as not to risk defaming the ex-president.

The election of the Student Council is one of the largest and most important events at UOS. For over a year, the emergency committee and the acting Student Council had filled the vacancy of the legitimate Student Council. It has now become possible to formally implement student autonomy. In order to make claims for students’ rights and make our school life joyful, the position of the Student Council is necessary. The UOS Times encourages students in UOS to be interested, pay attention to the student organization, and shape our school life together. Also, we wish good luck to the Student Council Tomorrow, which is going to accept students’ opinions well and implement mature autonomy activities.