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Professor reprimanded for berating foreign students

A Korean professor captured on video berating two Indonesian exchange students and calling one a “low animal” and “not human” has been reprimanded by his university.

The disciplinary committee of Gyeongsang National University ruled on June 26 that Bae Myung-whan, a mechanical engineering professor at the university in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province, had “undermined GNU’s reputation and demeaned himself as a professor” in his confrontation with Elvira Fidelia Tanjung and Merisha Hastarina.

Lee Jae-yun, a staff member at the university’s graduate office, told The Korea Herald that the reprimand included the withholding of six months of allowances amounting to over 9 million won.

The video of the incident had been uploaded by Tanjung in April on The Indonesian Students Association’s YouTube channel.

The committee, however, ruled Bae innocent of claims by Tanjung that he had forced the students to credit his son, a student of the same subject at Pusan National University, for research on one of their papers despite not being involved.

“Our committee concluded that it cannot be judged (that) Mr. Bae Jae-ok, Prof. Bae’s son, was falsely listed as a co-author of the paper. This is also because Prof. Bae, a corresponding author to the paper, recognized that his son’s research data, in part, obviously contributed to the research to some extent,” a statement from the university said.

The committee also found that while the students had completed their course and legitimately earned their master’s degrees, they had failed to submit the minimum number of research papers required by the BK21 program that had paid part of their tuition.

Bae is also the head of the government-supported project that aims to develop outstanding graduates in various fields.

By John Power
(john.power@heraldcorp.com)