Heewon Lee (Professor, English Language and Literature)

With great pleasure and honor, I would like to commend the inaugural publication of our universitys first English newspaper, The SeoulTech, in June 2021. I would also like to express my deep gratitude to SeoulTech President Donghoon Lee and the Director of the University Newspaper, Sungsoo Kim, who took the initiative to produce this seminal English newspaper. Additionally, I would like to extend my gratitude to the five student journalists who volunteered to write the articles for the first issue of The SeoulTech, and to the two editors, Professor Greg Thompson and Professor Tim Crawford, who helped guide the students along the article-writing process.

 

In fact, our university's first English publication, The Vision, was created in 1997 to serve as an annual journal written by students of the Department of English Language and Literature. After being published in journal format every year for almost 16 continuous years, in 2014, it was transformed into the departments English newspaper, providing interesting articles and stories by expanding its pages to include in-depth essays and a wider range of topics, from pop culture to current political issues. From that time until 2019, before the COVID-19 outbreak, six issues were published. However, without general interest and support from the university, its readership was limited to English Language and Literature students and faculty members.

 

In the 2014 edition of The Vision, Professor Robin Klinkner, co-editor of the newspaper, said, "The Vision will be a precedent that will ensure that in the future, there will definitely be a SeoulTech English newspaper." His prediction comes true on June 7, 2021, a monumental day for our university. For the first time, SeoulTech will have an English newspaper that will be able to be read by all of our university members, including alumni, in addition to those residing abroad who are interested in our university as the newspaper will be online.

 

I hope that The SeoulTech will be a SeoulTech English newspaper, showcasing SeoulTech students' knowledge of various topics, superb English writing ability, passion, and cooperative spirit. I also hope The SeoulTech can extend beyond the boundaries of the SeoulTech campus, giving people around Korea and the world a glimpse into the special, forward-looking current and future direction of SeoulTech.