Seoul National University confirmed Thursday that a professor recently resigned after accusations of plagiarizing his thesis published in 2004.

A 48-year-old surnamed Kim recently offered his resignation after admitting that he copied an article from Yale University for his article published by the Korean Association of International Studies.

The plagiarism allegation first arose from an email sent to the KAIS alleging that Kim copied a Yale professor’s report written in 1983 and translated it into Korean. The academic association started investigating the case last month.

It is the first case of a professor from the university resigning voluntarily amid a plagiarism scandal. The school has recently come under fire for downplaying instances of academic dishonesty.

SNU professor Kang Soo-kyung is accused of manipulating data in 14 papers published in international journals, and is currently under investigation by the university. Kang had already been called into the school’s ethics committee in 2010 for alleged data fabrication, but she received only a verbal warning from the school.

Kim graduated from SNU with a bachelor’s degree in political science and earned his doctoral degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. He has been teaching in the department of political science and international relations at SNU since 2008.

By Oh Kyu-wook
(596story@heradcorp.com)