A. __ The Minari Scholarships was established in 2015 and has been awarded to students once a year since 2016. Thanks to them, I know that there is usually no need for UNIST undergraduates to worry about tuition fees. However, from the 2nd semester of the first year, some students receive only half the amount of the scholarship, or sometimes even less than that, because the scholarship is linked to students’ grades. Among them, there are students whose finances are poor. I found out that some students hold down two or three part-time jobs, such as working at a school convenience store or a local coffee shop, to save up for their tuition fees, and I wanted to help those students so that they could focus on their studies in a more stable environment. So that’s how the Minari Scholarship began.
At present, the School of New UNISTars takes care of freshmen’s life and academic affairs. However, back in 2015 the School of Basic Academic Course (now the School of Liberal Arts) was responsible for them. Because it’s simply not possible to take care of all our students, we aimed to help at least the freshmen, so the scholarship is given to students who miss out on the scholarship from the 2nd semester of the first year in consideration of their finances, in spring in the 1st semester of the second year.
It has been seven years already. By the way, Kim Hong-oh, a chair-professor of the School of the Basic Academic Course at that time, created the title of the Minari Scholarship, saying, “National leaders for the future (Miraeleul ikkeul nalaui rideo, Minari).” Also, minari (water parsley) is Eonyang’s special product! I thought that the title “Minari” wouldfit well with the freshmen, who are just starting out and ready to flourish at school.

A. __ Nine former and current faculty members from the School of Basic Academic Course and the School of Liberal Arts participate in the Minari Scholarship. Like the expression “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,” I think it would be wrong to reveal their names. However, among the donors, I would definitely like to mention the late chair-professor Lee Jae-hyeong.
Thanks to Professor Lee Jae-hyeong’s generous donation of ten million won when he retired from the school in 2018, we were able to operate the scholarship system on a larger scale than expected up until this year. So I would like to take this opportunity to thank him once again.
When Professor Lee had to clean up his desk in the laboratory due to his suddenly deteriorating health, he called me. He handed me KRW 10 million in cash, saying that it wasn’t a lot of money but he wanted to donate it to the Minari Scholarship for students in need. So I asked him why he’d decided to make such a large donation, and he smiled and said, “I have received a lot from our school.” That was the last time I saw him. I still get emotional when I think of the scene of myself holding a large amount of cash in my hand against the background of the tidy laboratory.
I felt so sorry that I’d never known much about the old physics professor who stood smiling innocently in front of me, and I felt like crying as I was holding the heavy wad of money. I think he is probably watching from heaven, and I’d like to tell him that we are running the scholarship system very well and that many students have been encouraged for their studies thanks to his warmhearted support.

A. __ In fact, I accepted to do this interview for two reasons. One is to remember Professor Lee Jae-hyeong, whom I mentioned earlier, and the other is to express my hope that our school’s good influence will be connected with other good influences. The proverb, “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,” has a point, but in this case, the right hand may not know the left hand, and the left hand may not know the right hand.
Therefore, if by holding out our right hand to grasp the left hand of someone else, who will also offer their right hand to hold another person’s left hand……Well, wouldn’t it be nice if the good influence of our campus gradually grows like a snowball in this way?
When I met Professor Lee, I felt that the world was still worth living in. If those who read Professor Lee’s story feel the same way as I did then, there’s nothing more I could wish for.