Seoul National University to build new campus in Sejong City

SEOUL, Nov. 5 (Yonhap) -- Seoul National University (SNU) said Thursday it will
consider establishing a new engineering college campus in Sejong City in central
South Korea.
Sejong, about 160km south of Seoul, is at the center of a political dispute, as
the Lee Myung-bak government this week vowed to revise his predecessor's plan to
relocate a dozen government ministries and agencies from the capital to the South
Chungcheong Province city now under construction.
The announcement by SNU, South Korea's most prestigious university, came hours
after Lee's prime minister, Chung Un-chan, told parliament that he will push for
two to three domestic universities to open new campuses in Sejong under the
government's bid to alter the city's status as an administrative city.
Kang Tae-jin, dean of the SNU College of Engineering, said in an interview with
Yonhap News that his college recently devised a blueprint calling for the
construction of a second engineering college campus on a 1.9 million square meter
lot in Sejong at the cost of 700 billion won (US$608 million).
"I recently reported the blueprint on the construction of the 700 billion won
campus in Sejong City to the SNU president," said Kang.
Other university officials said SNU's Sejong campus plan was also reported to the
prime minister's office and the education ministry, explaining that the new
campus will be designed to accommodate about 270 professors and 6,500 students.
Sejong is located close to the Daedeok Science Town in Daejeon and Cheongju's
Osong Life Science Complex, Korea's first bio-engineering cluster.
ycm@yna.co.kr
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