Robert Laughlin is out as KAIST president, and if you were looking for a post-mortem, head to Oranckay’s.
-
English Books on Korea... and More!
-
Visit My Brother's Film Review Site
Robert Laughlin is out as KAIST president, and if you were looking for a post-mortem, head to Oranckay’s.
Korea News via Google
14 Comments
Orankay gets most of it right, particularly when he wonders what the school was thinking when it brought the good professor from Stanford on board (actually, it was the ministry of sci and tech, but that’s another story).
What he doesn’t know is that Laughlin was never here because he was committed to being part of something. He came for the money. I interviewed him last year for over an hour when I ran into him in the lobby of one of the five-stars here in Seoul. I found a man who was obviously very thoughtful about what needed to be done, but who also didn’t really care.
He made it clear to me that when they first approached him to gauge his interest to come here, he said “no way”. Then they wrote a number on a piece of paper and he jumped at it, all the while making sure that he secured a two-year hiatus from Stanford so he could go back after he’d made a bundle here. He also told me that his wife was dead set against coming here. And when I asked him whether he would seek a second term, he was worse than coy.
So, there is no great surprise here. The Koreans have been duped again, despite the best of intentions.
MJ said: “i found a man who was obviously very thoughtful about what needed to be done, but who also didn’t really care.”
Gerry writes: I wonder how MJ was able to tell that Professor Laughlin did not really care? Because he was reluctant to give up what he had at Stanford to come to Korea and deal with Korean professors more concerned with keeping the status quo than with improving the school? Because he was honest when he said that he took the job more for the money than for the love of Korea and the Korean culture?
I am not sure about KAIST, but when I was at Gyeongsang National University, I heard the the administration could not do anything without first getting permission from a committee of professors, who were very reluctant to consider new ideas. The president of the university was not required to get their permission, but little could be done without it. At least in Gyeongsang National University, it was a committe of professors that ran the school, not the president.
Koreans tend to consider Nobel Prize winners as almost godlike, so many of the professors at the school were probably disappointed to find that Professor Laughlin was just another foreigner who had better things to do than attend freshman orientation ceremonies or drink boilermakers with the boys after work.
When I wrote that he didn’t care, what I also should have said was that he fully intended to leave it all out on the court. In other words, he knew that he only had two years, which is obviously not nearly enough time to affect the kind of change he and the ministry want. So, by his own admission, he pissed people off, especially in the press. His goal was to get people going, to shake things up, and he didn’t care that the result would be a quick return to Stanford. That was part of his goal, too.
Now it’s my turn to wonder how Gbevers could possibly know how those professors at KAIST felt when The Man wouldn’t kick back for a few drinks. Indeed, how does Gbevers even know that Laughlin wasn’t up for a few drinks?
Kyeongsan National, hey? Nice…
Hrm. MJ’s comments are interesting. I have interviewed the man, too, and “did not care” is not a phrase I would have used. MJ’s second comment seems closer to the point. He was brought in to turn KAIST into “the MIT of Asia” (or whatever). For the KAIST faculty, that meant “make a lot of money for the school”. For Laughlin, that meant “totally change everything about the university”.
As for the pre-med and pre-law stuff, if you read Laughlin’s white paper, it explains his ideas quite well. He basically felt that KAIST was a great example of an industrial society’s university… fine for a $10,000/year GNP country, but totally inadequate for a leading nation. Koreans (and people in many countries) talk about the importance of having an education system that produces thinkers, not followers, but few ever get into the nitty-gritty of what that means. At least Laughlin tried to do that.
So what you really meant to say, MJ, was that Professor Laughlin did not really care if he pissed people off, not that he did not care about his job or the school, right? From what I have read in the press, he wanted to stay another two years, before more than 80 percent of the professors in the school turned against him because he was “anti-Korea and anti-KAIST”?
By the way, I am curious about what “anti-KAIST” means? Does it mean that he was against the group mindset at KAIST? Or did he just not like the way the buildings arranged on the campus?
It appears to me that Professor Laughlin ran into the same wall of “you-get-our-permission-first, status-quo” professors at KAIST that the president of Gyeongsang National University ran into when I was there. The only difference is that the Gyeongsang University president gave into the professors, but Professor Laughlin apparently did not, which is why, I suspect, he was labeled “anti-Korea” and “anti-KAIST.”
I read that one of the complains that the KAIST professors had against Professor Laughlin was that he did not attend freshmen orientation ceremonies, which, from my experience, are pretty much a waste of time. Why would professors supposedly concerned with research really care if a Nobel Laureate attended a freshman orientation ceremony? It sounds pretty petty to me.
As for my boilermaker drinking comment, I got that by reading between the lines of the trustees’ statement, which said, “there were social and cultural differences and a lack of communication that led to discord in the area of school operations and his leadership.”
In Korea, someone in a position of leadership is usually expected to attend a lot of “Let’s-make-good-bunwuigi” social functions, and many of these functions involve the consumption of alchohol. I have known a few Koreans in positions of leadership who have complained that they dislike attending such functions, but they have little choice in the matter because of social pressure. I have a feeling that Professor Laughlin simply said, “Have fun without me, boys, because I have more important things to do.”
A theoretical physicist, not a good administrator make.(Yoda speak)
Seriously, physicists are loonies. A theoretical physicist? A certified loonie. Big corporations would not let any of these bojos near administration. A theoretical physicist cannot run a decent mom-and-pop store, unless it is located on Mars.
Korea needed a “gao madam”( a Japanese term for “face”, to bring in customers) who can show to the world that KAIST is a worthy organization. So, they brought in somebody who in actuality least qualifies for the administrator job. And, for some time, this loonie from America was doing too much internal damage to the organization. It is time to say “Good riddance” and send him to the “quantum string Heisenberg uncertainty world” where he belongs.
Physicists are loonies. While they are doing “it”, they are calculating in their minds the amount of force (F) necessary. And, the distance travelled (s).
They know the total amount of work (i.e. energy) expanded in the process is Fxs. However, there is additional work in friction heat where the force was not in normal to the frictional surface after the action got going. So, adding a fuzzy factor, alpha, the total work=n(Fs) alpha(ns).
Yes, these physicists think about these things when they do “it”. Believe me, they do.
baduk,
You were doing well until that last post. I must admit though, it was pretty funny.
I was writing about how real physicists think. They are like Spok of the Enterprise. They have no emotion and they are constantly thinking, calculating, and theorizing.
Can you imagine Spok in charge? I know that he occasionally stepped in when Kirk was not on the ship, but only as a temporary assignment. He usually makes the most reasonable decision in his mind but most of the crew go bonkers.
Captain Kirk, full of emotion. Spok with no emotion.
Yet, people loved Kirk, the image of a leader who cares about people under him. A team player who knows how to dish out just a right amount of pressure to Scot. Scientists have spent too much time in their own world and have difficulty understanding normal human things, such as emotions, aspirations, hopes and dreams, fears, loves, hates, values and traditions.
A theoretical physicist, not a good administrator make.
GBevers,
thanks for the lesson.
I happen to be a visiting Professor at KAIST. So maybe I can add my obek Won worth of input. As a fellow Californian, Laughlin comes from a fast paced, “get it done” mentality. As you all know most of the best IT companies came from Stanford and Berkeley’s labs.
However, Korea and KAIST are not this fast paced world, “to say the least”. The professors and adminstrators are into keeping the status quo and change is not in their vocabulary. Things happen at a snails pace and mostly thru osmosis. Having been in Korea for 5 years, planning and strategy are not frequently practiced. Shoot first then ask questions later is the norm and then their response is to submit an apology. (i. Hwang,recent Samsung bribery,PM Lees golfing incident,etc.)
Koreans just don’t like to rock the boat. Change or die is a frequent motto in the business world, Koreans rather die or just resign. So it comes as no surrise that Laughlins is leaving. The school’s student paper editor has been lambasting the guy since day one as the new prez!!
Another loss for greatness by Korea and KAIST!
Baduk wrote:
“A theoretical physicist cannot run a decent mom-and-pop store, unless it is located on Mars.”
LOL! No matter what one thinks of 바둑님’s opinions one way or another, one can always rely on him for colourful comments!
The Koreans haven’t been duped at all they have simply duped themselves, again.
On the one hand they say they recognize the need for a massive shake-up of their university and so bring in a foreign hired gun with a (supposedly) impressive credential to magically, painlessly, fix their wagon. Once the wagon-fixer points out the much needed changes they tie his hands behind his back and say adios.
Dismissing Laughlin simply because he isn’t a trained administrator sidesteps the issue, he was a foreigner who threatened an entrenched and at times unqualified old boys’ faculty. It’s really no surprise there are no world class unis in this country.
One Trackback
[...] UPDATE: The Marmot linked this and wow, someone left some helpful insight in his comments section. I’ll quote some of it here: laughlin was never here because he was committed to being part of something. he came for the money. i interviewed him last year for over an hour when i ran into him in the lobby of one of the five-stars here in Seoul. i found a man who was obviously very thoughtful about what needed to be done, but who also didn’t really care. [...]