거점 국립대학교 선출직 총장의 특성 분석(1988~2023)

Abstract

Objectives The purposes of this study is to analyze the characteristics of presidents appointed at major national universities in South Korea over a period of 35 years since the introduction of the direct presidential appointment system in 1988. The research questions are as follows: First, what are the demographic characteristics, academic backgrounds, and career experiences of presidents at major national universities? Second, are there any differ-ences in the demographic characteristics, academic backgrounds, and career experiences of presidents based on the universities they lead?
 Methods To achieve the study’s objectives, data on 78 presidents of nine major national universities appointed since 1988 were collected from various sources, including the university websites, the Korea Research Foundation's Korean Researcher Information, the Korea University Newspaper, Naver Person Information, and the Korea Press Promotion Foundation's BIG KINDS. The collected data were analyzed using the SPSS 27.0 program. Descriptive statistics were initially calculated to identify the overall trends, and ANOVA and chi-square tests were conducted to detect differences between groups.
 Results Most of the presidents of national universities were male and were appointed in their late 50s. They often had regional connections. All the elected presidents were professors, and most of them had prior experience in executive-level positions at the university. These characteristics were consistent across the nine major uni-versities studied. However, the ratio of presidents from their alma mater and the characteristics of the president's academic field exhibited slight variations depending on the university. Notably, the proportion of presidents from their alma mater sometimes exhibited significant differences between universities.
 Conclusions This study analyzes who became president by examining the characteristics of elected presidents rather than explaining why they became president. The study results simply illustrate the characteristics of elect-ed presidents over the past 35 years. To explain why someone became president, further research is needed to understand how these characteristics influence the presidential election process.