Green University 

Thankyou all for making my visit to the Green University very interesting.
I learnt a lot about the university and the people were all very hospitable.

I got to plant soy,  saw the students managing the course in a democratic style (like Summerhill School), saw a excellent library, saw excellent re-use of buildings a closed down school for campus and abandoned village farm houses for accommodation (re-energising the countryside when it's mostly dying cos the young people leave to seek education and jobs, and of course building new stuff destroys nature and resources so re-using the old is important), 

saw a dedicated and enthusiastic team. (from the cook to professors)

An excellent refurbishment of the canteen/cafeteria (school restaurant) by the students.

excellent example of students building practice in the waterless ecological toilets. (but why isn't there any where to wash your hands ?)

How adult  students come down at the weekend. Showing the university is interested in "life long learning"

The university is a venue for special lectures.

Got to try eating dog. (like soft beef).

Saw an interesting drum and drama performance.

That the students work very much as a community. An experiment in future community living perhaps.

The valley has become Hippy Valley with people being attracted to the simple village life and a nearby ecovillage.

Comments and Ideas 

A1. Clean up the campus - A walk through pleasant gardens into a llobby with a nice photo display of university activities would give a pleasant impression. Instead   I was shocked to see the campus untidy and dirty.  I understand that I come from a different culture with different values, but I think that leaving chairs and building materials out in the rain is not ecological. The idea is to preserve the Earth's resources if we have to buy new chairs cos we didn't take care of the old ones we are wasting money and the Earth's resources.

I am not a tidy person, but I think if it seems we don't respect our immediate enviroment, then how do you expect people to believe that we really care about the environment Earth and nature etc . I realize that the students are young and probably come from rich families, so are not accustomed to keeping things clean and tidy, but I think it's the first thing they have to learn. Along with basic principles like : when you finish a job clean your tools and put them away, not leave them outside. : Every tool having it's own "home", so you keep things tidy and can always find what you need. I don't want to see dead nature like  the chemical cleanliness of government buildings. However, if people see a clean, tidy organized campus then they would think "these people are professional, they are organized in their work. " Sometimes artistic think their dream project is more important than keeping tidy they delude themselves.
Maybe I have been spoiled by some of the beautiful campuses I have seen in the past with their flower gardens of medicinal herbs, vegetable gardens full of abundant crops, ponds and reedbed systems for recycling dirty water,  nature walks through natural forest, simply refurbished buildings, solar panels, windmills (community gardens in NZ, CERES in Melbourne)

A little regard to aesthetics is good. The entrance door could have grape vines growing over it. The roof could be painted with the name; this would look good on a photo taken from the hill. At the moment from the car park you have to walk across a yard of untidy weeds. In NZ people salt the yards to stop weeds (to me this is not organic). Alternatively you could sow clover or another green manure plant then the yard would look uniform and the soil would return to life.
You could use the space outside the toilets for parking so people don't have to walk so far. An awning at the back door would be good for cyclists, ideally there should be an awning running around the back of the building so that you don't get wet going to the restaurant or toilets.
The old toilets could be made into moyoktang.

Dust and dirt in the rooms is not acceptable on grounds of hygiene. Dust on the top of cupboards etc provides a breeding place for disease. And in turn foid for cockroaches and mice. Even a curtain across the recreation room would provide a separate storage room.

 B. Spraying - It's good that the government has planted chesnut trees, but terrible for a Green University to be situated in an area which is chemical sprayed. As everything will be contaminated and no food crops considered organic. If 
they do use nasty chemical sprays I hope someone at the university is researching organic alternatives such as biological conol of insects. ( I know walnut trees produce a chemical from their roots which stops weeds growing underneath them.

C. Values
Actually I don't agree with the modern idea of University ie education for an elite, in a place away from the real world, and for  a few years before work. My hero professor Edward de Bono says education should be for all people, in real situations (ie. Farming should be studied on the farm) ,learning from experience not only theory, close to the community not divorced or elite from it, and a life long process. He also says Education is about aquiring skills not about buildings. John Wesley travelled using the shade of village trees as his lecture room. So it was good to see students studying farming by working in their own fields. I would also like to see some online courses over the internet as this would bring green education to more people and more money to the University. 

D. New Dormitory 
Education is about skills not about buildings so there is no reason to use money or resources to build new buildings, when the current ones are not being fully utilised. 
Many people have a picture in their mind of what an ecological building is ie a new adobe or staw walled building, but building new buildings instead of reusing old ones is not ecological at all.
The multiuse of facilities is important in saving money and natural resources like using the cafeteria as a classroom/ meeting room. If you could do the same ie using the lecture and recreation  rooms as sleeping rooms at night. That way you only heat one building instead of two. I imagine a system of large lockers along the room walls, with doors which fold out to become sleeping compartment walls at night. 

I don't see why valuable space is used for professors offices, when they unused 90% of the time.
I think the Professors don't need their own offices. They should hotdesk (use whatever table/computer is free). Their books should be in the library where everyone can use them. Files could be stored in lockers in the common room. That way you coul free up another 5 or 6 rooms for students to sleep in.

I would take the chairs out of storage in the recreation room and put them in the empty space in the upstairs corridor so they can be used

E. Energy efficient moyoktang for the students and whole community to use. Build it onto the side of the main building so it can use the existing ondol system)

F. Community interaction - I would like to see the university as part of the local community not separate from it so the hippy people can be together with the village people. Do the alomonis come in to  teach the old skills like basket and fope making ?

G. money - The University  needs to serve as example of how to live in the countryside the students  need to think how people can make money.
1. As a market for local organic products, and high value products like natural hanyak (lots of Green people seem to pass through campus, likewise the uni could sell other merchandise like Green books, and do things like bulk buy products to split up and sell to people passing through. Gives the students experience in sales etc.
2. Student labour agency - local farmers could phone and hire a whole team of young fit workers, people organising conferences and events could also phone to hire a team of young, sexy, intelligent, multilingual people. 
3. Cyber workers - The u has high speed internet so students could take  translation, project consultancy  or research jobs. This would show people, that with cyber work you can live in the country and earn money.
4. University  inhouse environmental and farming consultancy business. Again students would be learning in real world situations.

5. Managing farm plots for city people who come down at the weekend.

6. Venue Developing the campus as a weekend conference, weekend sports adventure weekend and party venue. The students could work serving drinks, cooking, playing music, performing etc. For groups that come do do a sales conference, birthday party or stag/hen party (before marriage).
7. In house Organic certification company, the students could work as inspectors

8 Creche business
 With so many intelligent, creative, artistic students I'm sure they would be good at taking care of farm workers children when they are working.

..maybe each team of students should be required to start there own business, as part of their grades.

9. Donation Forest  Maybe the university could buy abandoned farmland and restore is as a native forest asking people to pay 30 man to have a tree planted as their contribution to nature.

10. Festival - the democratic school in NZ made 20,000 dollars from one festival.

H. Peace  I didn't see much mention of peace, though I did see democracy, intercultural interaction and freedom  which are important basis for a peaceful society.

I.  Don't Shit in your own nest ! I see a lot of conflict on these noticeboards. I'm sure all the people believe in greener education though they might disagree on how. 1 I think people should devote their energies to positive change ie promote the ideas we all believe in, not waste their energies on shouting. 2. We receive a lot of bad things from the horrible outside world e.g. Lazy governments, corrupt food companies etc it's important that we just calmly absorb this negativity. We shouldn't reflect it back on our own families. 
We should be good no matter how bad other people are 

J. Cooperation I see that other places offer Green education in Korea, If they do it well, then GU should consider merging with them to benefit from good management, or at least cooperate closely. Anyway it's difficult for small organizations like GU it would benefit from close cooperation from well funded organizations like www.kfrem.or.kr. Fulssi aldo has regular weekends where they go out and help the organic farmers, I'm sure the students would benefit from this kind of experience. 
Good luck hope this helps please email me if you have any questions
Again thankyou all.

Stewgreen@yahoo.co.uk stewgreen@hotmail.com