1. It’s a pleasure to meet you both. Can you start by introducing yourselves? I’m curious about what kind of work you do, how long you’ve been doing it, and so on.

Kim Bong-gwan: When I was a graduate student in 2017, I volunteered as an education consultant with [SNU’s] volunteer group in the Binh Dinh province of Vietnam. I was really taken with the work, so in 2018 I seized an opportunity to become an employee. I’ve been working there for about five and a half years now, and at first I led volunteer groups to Vietnam and Laos as part of the Global Development Cooperation Center. I came over to the Global Social Service Center in 2021, and since then I’ve been running service learning courses in addition to the SHANUM Multicultural Society for Social Responsibility [hereafter, ‘SHANUM’], 

Nina: I entered SNU in 2019 as a student in the Department of Political Science and International Relations, and I’ve been a member of SHANUM since 2021. I’ve been the chair of SHANUM, and this year, while working here as a work-study student, I’ve also been participating in programs as a member, and am acting as a bridge between the students and the employees.

Kim Bong-gwan: We’re very thankful to Nina. Even though her volunteer hours aren’t included in her work hours, she gives her all to both. She was also an outstanding mentor and mentee in the School-Life Mentoring Program [for first-year international students]. And there’s something we should congratulate her for—she’s going to give the student-representative speech at the graduation ceremony for this summer session. I think her active participation in school activities combined with volunteering to help her classmates and community has really paid off.

 

2. I attended your organization’s ten-year anniversary celebration, but let me congratulate you again on the milestone. Our yearly Diversity Report also introduces the variety of student participation programs that SNU Social Responsibility [hereafter, ‘SNUSR’] offers. Among SNUSR’s activities, I’m most familiar with the domestic and international volunteer groups, so could you tell me more about SHANUM and its activities? And if there are other programs that aren’t well known to members of the university community, please talk about them, too.

Kim Bong-gwan: SHANUM is a program that was started in the second semester of 2019. At first, we intended for people on campus with diverse nationalities to participate, and to focus on volunteering related to cultural diversity or multiculturalism in our society. Fulfilling both of those goals would have been difficult enough to do, but then when we moved things online during COVID-19, our members whose Korean wasn’t fluent felt the resulting communication issues deeply. So SHANUM made its first goal prioritizing activities in which SNU people of various nationalities could participate, and restructured the program around volunteer activities that anyone could help out with and participate in even if Korean was difficult for them. After that, it became the SNUSR program with the highest satisfaction ratings.

An SNUSR activity I’d like to let people know about is the Social Responsibility PLUS+ Contest. Anyone at SNU can participate in the contest, which involves volunteer groups realizing their visions and maybe becoming models for knowledge-based social service in Korea or internationally. It’s intended to foster outstanding knowledge-based volunteers. We’re accepting entries until September 18, and what’s special about it is that if students just make it to the finals, they’re offered a mentoring process that develops their ideas so they can be realized and put into action. One idea that was realized through the contest’s predecessor program became Milk for Lao, an organization that’s currently active in Laos. It’s one of SNUSR’s partner organizations.

 

3. You’re working hard toward the goal of becoming a platform for activities that create social value, such as social contribution programs that all members of the school can participate in and fostering talented people who contribute to society. What kind of activities have you mainly focused on in the past two or three years? The COVID situation must have caused many difficulties for your operations.

Kim Bong-gwan: SNUSR’s mission as a social value-creating activities platform is, through university social service activities based on expertise, to foster talents who contribute to society and to advance sustainable development and social cooperation between our country and global society. We’re carrying out this mission, and we often felt its importance during COVID. The Global SNUSR Corps [overseas volunteer groups] are one of SNUSR’s biggest programs, and we wondered how to run them during COVID. Before COVID, the Binh Dinh SNU Corps that I led installed water purification systems at elementary, middle, and high schools, and [during COVID], an online-connected volunteer group was formed, with students from the local-university base who had volunteered with us before participating in facility inspections on their own initiative. In my time in the field, this was the moment when our strategies of cooperating with local universities and of building others’ capacities really flowered. We used the Internet to run a variety of activities, communicating in real time to carry out the maintenance and management of ten water purification systems, give training, and even do cultural exchange. Also during our period of remote activities, we made storybooks and animated cartoons in a variety of languages on COVID prevention and management, road traffic safety, and sexual violence prevention for those who need easy-to-understand content, and distributed them domestically and abroad.

 

As for SHANUM—as I said earlier, we’re moving firmly forward in the direction of being a volunteer group in which members of various nationalities can work together even if their Korean language skills are not great. We plan to operate SHANUM in accordance with an expanded four-part activities framework [below] so that it serves as an opportunity for members of the SNU community to grow into people who can accept and live in harmony with various cultures.

 

 

 

 

Nina: At orientation, in particular, each member of SHANUM introduced themselves in different ways through their culture’s norms or their mother tongue, and it was a time when we were able to discover commonalities that made us feel connected even though there are also differences between us. And among the activities related to learning about the place we’re living in—SNU, Gwanak-gu, Korea, etc.—the most memorable one was volunteering to make kimchi in Siheung. We started by harvesting [Napa cabbage] from a donor’s field and got to see how people in the local community help each other out, but I also felt like I was receiving slightly more special treatment during the volunteer work because of my skin color, which was a difficult experience. However, [the activity] was an experience that allowed me to communicate with the local community, and I think it was a time for our friends whose Korean isn’t very good to grow together by helping each other.

 

4. I’m curious about the diversity of the SNU people who participate in your programs. What are the ratios of men and women, international students, or students with disabilities, or of faculty, students, and staff? Are there notable characteristics of the participants in each program? 

Kim Bong-gwan: Any member of the SNU community can participate in SHANUM, regardless of their nationality. The percentages of undergraduate and graduate students is about 50-50, and there are more women than men, at a ratio of 2:1. There are so many international students that the ratio of domestic students to international students is 1:2. I think the reason for the large percentage of international students is the different way we advertise. English is the main language of SHANUM’s marketing materials, and putting it on top seems to make our activities more attractive to international students. We don’t use disability status as a criterion for admission to the group, so it’s difficult to determine the scale of participation of people with disabilities, but we’ve never had a member request accommodation for a physical or mental disability. If someone does have a disability, SHANUM plans to do its best to ensure their participation is not limited by it. SHANUM is also a program in which faculty and staff can participate as members rather than advisors. The numbers of such faculty and staff are small because it’s a program that requires regular and consistent participation, but they do participate consistently, because of the chance to communicate in English in an open atmosphere. Also, among SNUSR’s programs there’s a separate ‘Faculty Society for Social Responsibility’, which is organized by faculty members. 

 

5. I know that the Diversity Council has held diversity sensitivity trainings a few times now for students in the overseas volunteer groups. Students in those groups must have different, diverse experiences from domestic volunteers—have you encountered any difficulties while overseeing them? 

Kim Bong-gwan: Yes, they say [your trainings] are very helpful. The Global SNUSR Corps meet refugees, they meet a lot of young children, the economically disadvantaged, and students who want to learn Korean. As a result of this, it’s a structure in which a donor-beneficiary hierarchy can arise, so the Diversity Council’s training is a chance to learn how to avoid mistakes that you hadn’t thought about in these relationships. As a volunteer, when you go with idea that you’ll respect diversity and difference during your participation, this seems to be motivation to let go a little of the attitude of “because I came to help you.” Also, people might have stereotypes about a country or a people, about a group, and diversity sensitivity training seems to help with this to a certain degree. And sometimes they set industrialization and economic growth as the criteria for development, but diversity sensitivity training cultivates other perspectives on development, and I think it has fostered an attitude of seeking out similarities and differences with our country. 

 

6. Now in its fifth calendar year of existence after being started in the second semester of 2019, the SHANUM Multicultural Society for Social Responsibility has been engaged in multiculturalism-related activities in local communities. Personally, I’m particularly impressed by the Multicultural Children Mentoring Program and the Mother Tongue Education program, in particular, Could you share how you came to plan these programs, and if there have been any difficulties or new things you learned while working on them? 

Nina: We ran a dream mentoring program for students from multicultural families at an elementary school in Gyeonggi-do. There were a lot of students who couldn’t speak Korean, and I found it striking how those who could speak both Korean and their parents’ language would interpret for their friends. In that program, we conducted activities centered not just on a variety of jobs but on values and dreams beyond work. Later, in a mentoring program for kids of immigrant families in Gyeongju, we went a step further and provided dream mentoring based on intercultural understanding, and had the participants introduce Gyeongju as city residents and even experience volunteering with us. We’re supposed to see those kids again next January, so this is long-term mentoring in which you can see how you’ve changed and how you’ve grown in that time, and I think that makes it a more meaningful program.

Kim Bong-gwan: SHANUM continues to evolve. To tell you the truth, we recruited all over the country for Mother Tongue Education participants, but there weren’t that many in the end. While the dream mentoring that we did in Gyeonggi-do was at the first stage, of being role models and mentors for students from multicultural families and giving them comfort and sympathy, Gyeongju also involved raising the students’ self-esteem. Those kids expanded their capabilities as citizens, acting as Gyeongju tour guides for their mentors and doing volunteer work themselves. Because Korean society has already become multicultural and will continue to develop in that direction, we’re always thinking about what the best thing is that a multi-nationality volunteer group can do within that. I think it will come from contemplating how to realize the ‘Coexistence: living as a multicultural being’ stage of the activities framework mentioned above.

 

7. When you look at it from the standard of understanding and embracing diversity, what has been one or two of SHANUM’s most relevant or most memorable activities, and why? 

Nina: Working with the Gwanak-gu Welfare Center for the Disabled was memorable. Once a week, we would play badminton or basketball at the [SNU] dorms’ sports facility with people with disabilities. I’ve encountered a lot of cultural diversity, but I had no direct experience with the disabled, so personally, I was able to break many of my preconceptions through this program. I learned that there is a variety of disabilities and the disabled aren’t so different from me. So even after that program ended, I kept playing badminton with them on my own.

 

8. I see that you planned multiculturalism-acceptance activities for international members of the SNU community who were hurt by anti-foreigner rumors spread in the wake of the 2022 Halloween crowd crush. I was particularly surprised that you conducted foreign-language trainings, such as English-language CPR training, that hadn’t been available on campus. What kinds of on-campus programs do you think we need in order to increase respect for minority groups like international students and eliminate discriminatory culture? 

Nina: The first thing that comes to mind is orientation for international students. It may have changed a lot by now, but when I entered SNU in 2019, course registration and everything was explained in Korean. I think that the language problem is the most urgent, and next I’d say not enough is done to introduce university culture, such as the relationship between senior and junior students or communications with professors. 

Kim Bong-gwan: The CPR training conducted in English that people with limited Korean could also participate in was particularly meaningful. Unlike other SHANUM activities, it was planned from the idea onward by students, without a framework from above. In order to increase respect for minority groups and eliminate discriminatory culture, I think there need to be more participation-type programs like that, in which people themselves look around them, seek out problems that those around them are experiencing, and plan a program that they can participate in to solve them.

 

9. I feel like SNUSR’s core values and the Diversity Council’s mission are similar. Putting domestic and international volunteering aside, what should we pay more attention to and put effort into first, in our daily lives and on campus, in order to concretely put the value of diversity into practice at SNU? 

Kim Bong-gwan: I think this relates to your earlier question, but rather than discriminatory culture, I think that the place people belong to, they get used to that group’s culture and then without realizing it, they discriminate against others. I think it’s important to have a sense of community. If you talk about ‘acceptance’ then there has to be a subject who’s doing the accepting, so I think instead that we need to expand our sense of community based on reciprocity. I believe that a sense of community arises when diverse people take care of each other and pay attention to each other’s difficulties. I think that carrying the name of SNU and going off-campus together to volunteer is very meaningful in fostering a sense of belonging. In the end, our understanding of our community needs to grow in order for there to be no more discrimination against people for being foreign, disabled, contract workers, and so on.

Nina: Like he said, I’ve felt a sense of belonging while volunteering with SHANUM. As an international student you’re always in the position of receiving help, but through volunteer work and by doing that with other SNU students, I thought about my own value—‘Ah, I’m also someone that can help others. Ah, I too am an SNU student.’

 

10. I’m curious what ‘diversity’ is to you. And do you think that students, faculty, and staff at SNU are living with respect for values like diversity, inclusivity, and belonging? 

Nina: I’m not sure how much diversity SNU has included up to now, but among its 1,300 international students, only about 200 are undergraduates, and I think the fact that I, a part of that small group, am giving a speech as the graduate representative at this 77th graduation ceremony is a reason for hope. I was able to get this opportunity because the atmosphere at SNU is one of respect for diversity, and I think this is the beginning of change.

Kim Bong-gwan: I often think that it would be nice if there were more international members [of the university community], as their numbers are quite small compared to the total number of students, and if the school had more disability-friendly infrastructure. I do think we’re moving in the right direction, and that since we’re Seoul National University, the steps we take have a big influence on other public and even private universities. If we expect that there will be more international students in the future as well as more children from multicultural families, we’ll need to change quickly.

 

11. At the beginning of this year, our two institutions met and promised to hold a ‘Cultural Diversity Talk’ at the end of November. As this is the first collaborative project between us, expectations are high. I’d like to think together about whether there are other ways we can collaborate in the future. Do you have any additional comments or suggestions in this area? 

Kim Bong-gwan: I’d like to go off-campus together. SHANUM has done some activities in the local community, and I think it would be a good idea for the Diversity Council to do that work with us—go out into the community and communicate with the people, and in the process, improve diversity within the school. For example, we could take the CPR training for foreigners that we ran last year and offer it in Gwanak-gu for foreign residents of various classes. That’s one idea, and I think there are a lot of others we could consider.

Nina: When it comes to diversity, people often think mainly of multiculturalism, they think first of diversity with foreigners, but it would nice to have varied programs that promote mutual respect with regard to all types of diversity. I’d like to see more opportunities to consider diversity without prejudice, like the Diversity Council’s ‘Conversation in the Dark’ activity that I participated in.