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The New 2022 Student Council Welcomes Mason Korea Patriots with Great Support and Kind Regards

최종 수정일: 2022년 5월 21일


President, Ilya Kim, and Vice president, Kieun Kwon of the new 2022 MK Student Council welcomes everyone back on campus.

Photo credit: Ilya Kim, Kieun Kwon, Sunbin Kim


The new student council has taken over the student government of Mason Korea (MK) for 2022. The former student council of Mason Korea made several attempts to host various gathering events in a non-contact environment to maintain constant individual interactions; however, unfortunately, considerable clashes between the student body and the Incheon Global Campus (IGC) Foundation have not still been settled. Regarding this issue, the president of the Student Council, Ilya Kim (GMUK, Global Affairs, ‘23), and the vice president, Kieun Kwon (GMUK, Global Affairs, ‘23), delivered the good news in the interview conducted by The Voice of GMUK that they plan to create a new IGC Student Council to fulfill MK and IGC students’ needs by cooperating with other universities in the IGC as well as reforming the MK Student Council as a systematic organization like Fairfax’s.


Q1. Could you explain the 2022 MK Student Council’s promises or pledges for the student body?


Ilya Kim: We want to become more like the Fairfax campus. Fairfax has a student government with a senate. Those students are a completely separate body from the president and vice president, which is different from the student council in Mason Korea, in how it exists as a single group. Therefore, the priority is to push our significant representatives to become student senates at Mason Korea and have our future representatives do the same; we are thinking about having at least two people per major. To prevent the ongoing problems for our campus, that sometimes some majors don’t have their representative after the election cycle, which happens again at the end of this semester, we want to hold a second election to elect a sophomore or a freshman student to be the second representative per major. Next semester, we will make sure to have a practiced student to teach a new member that when we hold our other elections, there’s at least one more person who has already done the job and can lead a new person on how to be a good representative for the major.


Furthermore, another goal that the Student Council is pursuing this year is to frequently cooperate with the IGC union.


Kieun Kwon: We are trying to uproot whatever we have of the student council and turn it into a student government. As a vice president, I have communicated with the other IGC student council presidents, and we have been trying to form an IGC union or IGC student council union. We’re hoping that by having such a union, we will be able to better address some issues that we have within our IGC community with a much stronger voice among all the universities on campus here in IGC, so in that way, we can have more power or stance to appeal to IGC. We’ve been having meetings once or twice each month, and we’re also trying to organize other IGC wide events together.


Q2. Are there any expectations for the 2022 MK Student Council members and the organization itself?


Ilya Kim: I believe that student council members and student leaders have to set an example of exemplary student behavior and show students how to overcome those difficulties while working together with the faculty and staff. I firmly believe that we also have our responsibilities prior to the fact that we are students. What I am willing to do and what I am trying to get my student members to do as well is that if a student fulfilled all their responsibilities, but a faculty or a staff member still did not help that student, then my team and I will do everything in our power to the point where we’re willing to go to the campus dean about it to advocate for that student on why certain things were not followed through.


I also think that my team has to be aware of what is going on on this campus. One of our smaller projects that we are working on is for every major representative to write a proposal for their major. Specifically, we asked them to identify classes they want to be added to Mason Korea; we believe that that’s a necessary step for our campus development, and in a professional aspect, as a major representative, you need to understand what your students need. To do that, we need feedback from students, which is what we are emphasizing. We are here to support us, but it’s also the students’ job to give us the help we need. If students don’t answer our surveys or choose not to respond when we ask them to respond, we do not argue with the leadership.


Kieun Kwon: I think the expectations are all critical for student leaders to do their activities. One of the things that I emphasized during my campaign with Ilya is that we must communicate within our student council group, not just with the student body and the representative. I have been trying to set announcements here and there, see if anything is going on between other representatives, and try to reach out to them more personally; hopefully, they feel it. Another thing I would like for them to do is to be proactive. All of us are there because we have put ourselves out there. Without them being proactive and getting out of their way to get things done, we cannot do their work for them.


Q3. Mason Korea (also other universities in IGC) students have complained to the IGC Foundations about various problems. How would the MK Student Council respond if those IGC-related issues come up?


Ilya Kim: Ultimately, we will work with the IGC union to draft a joint letter with the list of complaints that students have primarily towards the IGC housing. One of the things that we will pursue if our communication with IGC fails is to draft the joint letter and submit it to the Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ) that oversees the Incheon Global Campus operation. If IGC is not being cooperative, we believe that students have a right to bring their concerns up to a higher government authority and ask about how the tax money is being spent and why, when so much money is being paid directly to IGC, and how much tax money is being given to IGC.


Q4. As Mason Korea has face-to-face classes this semester, what would be different from the student council from the last two years throughout the pandemic?


Ilya Kim: To begin with, we will have many more events. Our event representative is working on at least three events that will be hosted this semester. Additionally, we are working closely with the university’s leadership to organize so-called coffee visiting events. Students would have an opportunity to go to ‘Nannum Cafe’ and have a private chat with the Deans and get to know them more closely. Additionally, we are pursuing a policy where any student can reach out to the student council or submit an anonymous feedback form. We will try to have monthly meetings with the leadership to make sure their concerns are heard. Another thing that we are working on is creating office hours for student council members and making them public, so students can visit student council members and voice their concerns.


Kieun Kwon: Since it is a very uncertain time, we will try to cater to students’ needs, and if needed, instead of just fully being in-person like the RSO or the student engagement fair that we had today, it could be a hybrid where it’s both in-person and online, so that it is accessible to all students, allowing them to join to secure maximum participation.


Q5. Is there any message you would like to deliver to the patriots?


Ilya Kim: I would tell our students that if they have any concerns, they should also understand that they can bring them up to us by sending an email or submitting an anonymous survey to us directly instead of using ‘Everytime,’ the online student community. We will be happy to do something for that student, mainly because sometimes comments submitted on ‘Everytime’ do not give us enough information to understand what is going on. We want our campus to be a truly inclusive environment for all students, whether Korean students, International students, MK way, or PPP students. By what means are we trying to limit their freedom? We do encourage the groups of students to create more clubs and collaborate. Still, we want to make sure that when we do not gather in bigger groups, everybody is comfortable and doesn’t feel like they’re being discriminated against.


Kieun Kwon: I would like to add that we do not bite. We love, generally, talking to students. We’re also students, sometimes people. Sometimes, I understand where that comes from, but would recommend reaching out to us. Our Kakao is open right now. We emailed all the contact info again with our welcome email that we posted last week sometime this week. If you have any questions or concerns or want to talk, we are here for whatever reason. The most important purpose that we have as a student council is representing the student body for the most part. So, it will not hurt to reach out to us.


The new student council has promised to change the MK student council into a student government and increase cooperation with other IGC universities to help students have a better campus environment. Also, the student council is willing to support and advocate for Mason Korea students by opening student council office hours and other policies that can help students reach out to them more easily, even via Kakaotalk. However, they emphasize that in order to know and provide help with what the students need, students should actively participate in giving feedback and delivering opinions to any student council members. They recommend that if it is hard to voice directly, they should reach out to them anonymously instead. Mason Korea aspires that the 2022 MK Student Council will be able to help students enjoy their campus life as well as improve their academic experience with the students’ active participation.



Written by Sunbin Kim | Staff Writer

Revised by Yu Bin Kwon | Managing Editor



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