Founded in 1906 by Buddhist pioneers with the purpose of “Protecting the Nation by means of Education” when the future of the nation seemed bleak under the Japanese colonial rule, Dongguk University began with the name Myeongjin School, and later continued its development under the names of the Advanced Buddhism School, Jungang Haklim, Central Buddhism College, and Hyehwa College. Despite being forced to close under Japanese imperialism, the University has enlightened the spirit of the times at every critical moment of Korean society. After national liberation, the University changed its name to Dongguk University in 1946 and was promoted from a college to university in 1953. Today, Dongguk University has more than 300,000 alumni in various fields, including religion, politics, economy, society, education, and culture. Currently, it has established sisterhood relationships with more than 300 universities in 51 countries worldwide, and is leading the Korean society as the nation's top prestigious private university with over 28,000 students across four campuses in Seoul, Goyang, Gyeongju, and Los Angeles.

Accelerating the advent of the future campus

Since 2019, Dongguk University has been preparing to introduce a full-duplex remote class system laying the groundwork for the 4th industrial revolution. In the wake of the spread of COVID-19, remote lectures were put into practice as of March. Remote lectures, run via advanced ICT technology, are drawing attention, as full-duplex classes enable data sharing, writing, video playback, interactive communication, and quizzes in real time. All teachers are fully prepared for the real-time remote lectures by shooting sample lectures and performing advance monitoring. Furthermore, stable operation of non-contact online lectures was possible without causing server overload due to an increase in the number of users. Exemplary preparedness has been displayed throughout the university community.

Education innovation leading the 4th industrial revolution

As a representative concept for the development plan of the Energize Dongguk Project, which was announced by the university president, Yoon Sung-yee, upon his inauguration, “Fostering Harmonization-Type Talent to Lead the 4th Industrial Revolution” has been selected. A new department dedicated to the project was also established under the name “Education and Innovation Division.” First, the major-convergence system was introduced from the first semester of this year to remove barriers between departments and majors. Under the convergence of majors, a department (major) and another department (major) form a new major program. This newly developed major convergence can be taken by students of any department (major). This year, public talent and machine intelligence convergence majors were established, and new major-convergence programs are expected to be created in the future.

The university’s preparation for software education capabilities is also noteworthy. Dongguk University developed a basic curriculum of software education and strengthened software education for non-majors, such as humanities, social sciences, arts, physical education, and natural sciences. The university aims to provide software convergence education that goes beyond the conventional level of convergence between engineering disciplines and encompasses science and technology, engineering, manufacturing, and software from a humanities perspective. A curriculum that realizes student-centered convergence-based education through the integration of engineering, humanities, social science, and arts via software is currently in operation. The number of students completing the convergence software major increased significantly from 212 in 2018 to 313 in 2019. Regular semesters are also operated flexibly. Dongguk University introduced the Intensive Course Program to enable instructors to select and operate various lengths of curriculum, such as 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 10 weeks, without the constraint of the existing standard number of class days.

Analysis based on data facilitates more accurate and reasonable decision making in the University. Last year, Dongguk University established an Institutional Research (IR) team to systematically collect, collate, and analyze all university data, provide them to members of the University, and support university policy decisions.

“Turning Aspirations into Reality,” creating a university culture centered on youth startups

To date, Dongguk University strived to create an entrepreneurship-oriented university culture. More systematic support of entrepreneurship was made possible by combining various aspects of entrepreneurship, such as startup support, incubation, and education functions, which had been managed under multiple organizations, into Startup-One, an integrated management organization for entrepreneurship on campus. A number of student startups are being fostered by introducing an entrepreneurship-friendly undergraduate administrative system, such as allowing leaves of absence for startup ventures and a credit-substitution system for entrepreneurship. The University is building a strong foundation as a regional hub university by supporting up to 100 million won in marketing and commercialization costs for young entrepreneurs in the preliminary and early-stage startups. Last year, the University received the 2019 Presidential Award for Venture Startup Promotions.

300,000-strong alumni network

Befitting a university with a 114-year history, alumni serve as the University’s strongest supporters. Dongguk University alumni actively participate in the donation of development funds for the University and juniors every year. In particular, at the Sponsored Night to Energize Dongguk event held in November of last year, the University presented a vision of developing and fostering departments to reach the top 10 in Korea and top 100 in the world, and the donation support amounted to 28 billion. Based on these donations, Dongguk University plans to add fresh fuels to cultivating global talent and reinforcing research competitiveness by inviting outstanding instructors and fostering world-class scholars, and to building a future campus by establishing a world-class education and research infrastructure.