Dong-A University in Busan has set ‘industry experience’ and ‘industry-academia cooperation achievements’ as conditions for hiring, reappointment, and promotion of professors instead of doctoral degrees and theses.
On the 7th, Dong-A University announced that it appointed Professor Shim Daeyong, a semiconductor expert and former Vice President of SK Hynix, and Professor Kim Byungcheol, an autonomous vehicle technology expert, as ‘full-time industry-academia faculty (tenure track).’
The ‘full-time industry-academia faculty (tenure track)’ system, newly introduced by Dong-A University in 2021, is one of the ‘university innovation measures’ aimed at selecting professors based on industrial capabilities rather than formal qualifications. It is also a strategy to firmly establish itself as an ‘industry-academia cooperation-centered university’ by recruiting faculty members with rich field experience.
Such a groundbreaking case of professor recruitment by the university is hard to find nationwide. Previously, full-time faculty with tenure required a ‘doctoral degree,’ and reappointment and promotion conditions also required ‘thesis achievements.’
However, Dong-A University’s full-time industry-academia faculty require ‘a master’s degree or higher’ and ‘more than 20 years of experience in industry or institutions’ as essential qualifications. Reappointment and promotion are also evaluated based on ‘industry-academia cooperation (research funding and technology fees) achievements’ and ‘student employment achievements.’
Unlike existing full-time faculty who start as assistant professors and advance to associate professors and professors, the ‘full-time industry-academia faculty’ start as associate professors from the initial appointment.
The annual teaching load is also six hours per semester, less than the nine hours for existing full-time faculty, but they are responsible for practical courses and large-scale national projects.
Lee Haewoo, President of Dong-A University, said, “We made a groundbreaking change in the professor recruitment criteria with the intention of bringing in professors proficient in industry-academia cooperation to provide education that the industry demands by deploying experts familiar with the field.”
He added, “We will continuously strive with an innovative and reformative mindset to strengthen industry-academia cooperation and provide practical education to help students find employment, fulfilling our role as a prestigious regional private university.”
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