The 10-month term of the 45th ‘Response3057’ General Students Association(GSA) is coming to an end. The ‘Response3057’ GSA promised to fulfill 100% of their election pledges. ‘Response3057’ GSA had issued 45 election pledges and added 11 pledges which were required by the students. GSA has implemented 94% of the election pledges of 56 election pledges. The three unfulfilled pledges are the upgrading of the proportion of A grades, menstrual leave and student discounts in university cafeterias. According to the GSA, the remaining three pledges are under negotiation.  

  In addition, they received favorable evaluations from many students. The Chungbuk Times carried out a satisfaction poll of the ‘Response3057’ GSA. A total of 493 CBNU students participated in the poll. 46.8% of the students replied ‘Yes’ to the question about ‘Do you think Response3057 GSA did well?’ 39.7% said ‘Not bad’, and the remaining 13.34% replied ‘Insufficient’. When asked they why, 33.7% students who said ‘Yes’ answered ‘the effort to activate communication with students’. 23.57% answered ‘differentiated pledges’ and 10% said ‘financial transparency’.

  Actually, Response3057 promised to activate communication with students as its main election pledge. To show their intention, the Response3057 put GSA’s office number ‘3057’ in its name. In addition, they opened a Facebook account. Using it, they posted campus news promptly, which allowed students to learn about the events and news, and then students could post their complaints about it. Moreover, the president and vice-president opened their cell phone numbers to make GSA more accessible and respond to students’ requests faster. In contrast to earlier GSAs, Response3057 was active in social networking to announce campus events. However, some students said their offline announcements were insufficient. Lee (Dept. of Forestry, sophomore) said, “I think most announcements were too focused on the Jung Moon areas. It would be better to diversify the places such as libraries and the College of Engineering.” 

  In addition to this pledge, for the first time, GSA held a starting ceremony with volunteer workers and practiced a voting system for musical guests(9/3~9/7), a cross-country walking trip(7/22~8/3), a day for free bicycle repair service (4/8, 5/9, 6/5, 10/18, 11/15). Gyen (Dept. of Chinese Language and Literature, junior), said, “The good thing I think was that they held lots of forums and invited many celebrities. It was very useful to university students.” 

  However, there were some negative claims. 47.04% of students replied ‘Insufficient’ or ‘Not bad’. To the question of ‘Why do you think so?’, 21.3% replied ‘their insufficient effort of communication’, and 16.4% replied ‘their lack of political activities’. 16% said other opinions such as a cheating incident by one executive member, campus facilities problems, or a lack of student welfare. When many other university GSAs declared the state of affairs against the political issue of the fraudulent presidential election, Response3057 showed an indifferent attitude. They did not state their position, and they did not even try to ask the students’ opinions about the national issue. In terms of this problem, Jin Jae-gwon(GSA president of Response3057) said, “I am sorry for this point. We did a lot of thinking about this issue, and we did not want to just follow other universities’ actions. For that reason, it was too late to express our position.” 

  Most students replied to the question ‘what do you want from the next GSA?’, “I hope they will try to improve student welfare.” Lee (Dept. of English Language and Literature, junior) said, “I hope the next GSA will maintain the course registration basket system.” Kim (Dept. of German Language and Literature, freshman) said, “I hope they will practice a meal ticket program when we use the dormitory cafeterias. Currently, dorm students are mandatorily paying for meals 7 days a week.” There were opinions about the festival. Jo (Dept. of Housing Environment, freshman) said, “I hope they will hold many events related to the 2014 World Cup.” Also, he added, “In terms of the 2013 festival, because they held the festival in a playground near the Chungbuk National Hospital at night, many patients and neighbors felt discomfort. I hope the next GSA will take more consideration when they choose the festival venue.” Jin Jae-gwon (GSA president of Response3057) said, “The most demanding part where I worked my best was communication with students. I really worked hard to achieve this point. Also, in terms of finance, I am very proud to have run GSA very transparently. We specifically opened where and when we used student union fees. However, there are still many insufficient parts. I hope the next GSA will reinforce our good pledges and complement our insufficient parts.”

By Lee Su-ji | sj34@cbnu.ac.kr