The Deans of College of Engineering from 7 Asia’s Most Prestigious Universities Seek Joint Recruitment of Female Professors


The first ever ‘Women in Engineering Workshop’ that was held in Korea
Request for application of 50 shortlisted participants to apply for faculty position in Korea



A Group Photograph of ‘The Rising Stars Women in Engineering Workshop’ Participants


Dean Kookheon Char of SNU College of Engineering (third from left) is emphasizing the importance of recruiting female professors at the ‘The Rising Stars Women in Engineering Workshop’ on October 25^th  Photo provided by SNU

"A hundred years ago, the top universities in the world were all in Europe, but within 50 years, universities in the United States have taken their place. In the next 30 years, we assure you that Asian universities will take the lead, so we request you to please apply to our universities." (Professor Tim Kwang-Ting CHENG, Dean of Engineering at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology).
 
On October 25^th, the Deans of seven major universities in Asia including Seoul National University, China's Tsinghua University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), National University of Singapore (NUS), National Taiwan University (NTU), The University of Tokyo, University of New South Wales (UNSW) gathered together at the Gwanak Campus of SNU. At 'The Rising Stars Women Engineering Workshop', each University Dean introduced his/her university's college of engineering to 50 shortlisted female engineer participants, requesting them to "apply to our schools as we are recruiting female professors."
 
An international joint workshop that is designed to help female engineers advance into academia was held in South Korea for the very first time. The reason why the seven Deans from the most prestigious and leading universities of Asia have come together to hire female professors is because they share the awareness of having alarmingly low ratios of female professors in their engineering departments. For example, of the total 326 professors at Seoul National University College of Engineering, only 13 professors (4%) are female professors. "The ratio of female professors is a highly valuable indicator regarding the cooperation and competition with other world-leading of the world's most prestigious universities," said Dean Kookheon Char of SNU College of Engineering. "The figure of 4% within SNU College of Engineering is a real shame in the international community," he added.
 
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RSE was first held at HKUST last year. Of the 50 female engineers who participated in the workshop at the time, 15 were hired as professors. This year, 56 female engineers from 25 universities around the world including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and Seoul National University participated in the RSE. "I didn't think it possible to become a professor in Asia until I attended the RSE last year," said Professor Sunmi Shin who was appointed as an Assistant Professor of the College of Mechanical Engineering at NUS. "If RSE continues to go on, it will surely motivate female researchers who are unsure of whether they should continue with their engineering studies or not."
 
Jung-Hye Roe, President of the National Research Foundation of Korea stated that “the existence of a glass ceiling for women scholars is still very much a reality”. She added that “universities should continuously work to break these silently hidden prejudices".