The Very Ajou Lecture Series, featuring back-to-back special lectures from notable figures and opinion leaders in Korea, was successfully streamed in their entirely on Ajou’s YouTube channel with to stimulate thought and interesting discussion online.

The Very Ajou Lecture Series was a three-day event lasting from November 24-26. Four speakers presented daily lectures from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. More than 14,000 viewers streamed these lectures live.

The 12 special speakers included: 

• University President Park Hyung-ju; Kim Yeong-ran, Chair Professor in the Law Schoo and former Korean Supreme Court Justice
• Prof. Kim Gyeong-il (psychology); Prof. Roh Myeong-woo (sociology)
• Choi Jae-cheon, animal behaviorist and current chair professor at Ewha Womans University and the inaugural president of the National Institute of Ecology
• Choi Jin-seok, former professor of philosophy at Sogang University and now chair of the New Word New Action Foundation, and advocate for developing practices for better life and better society
• Park Jun-yeong, attorney renowned for handling the most challenging retrial cases for the wrongly convicted
• Woo Seok-hun, an economist and professor at Sungkyul University
• Yang Dong-su, attorney and advocate of apartment cooperatives through Deoham, an innovative social enterprise;
• Seo Eun-guk, professor of psychology at Yonsei University, researcher on happiness
• Jang Kang-myeong, former journalist turned writer
• Nam Hyeong-do, popular reporter for Money Today and author of the Cheheolism series, which has attracted the largest number of social media followers among all active journalists in Korea today.

“Thought provoking” was the keyword and theme of this year’s lecture series. The lectures were designed not to impart wisdom and knowledge unilaterally, but to provoke the audience into questioning and finding their own answers. More than a thousand live audience members were chosen based on their pre-event applications to participate in the interactive lectures through videoconferencing. These audience members posed questions before and during the lectures, and their communication with the speakers was moderated by Chae Ja-yeong.

Recordings of the lectures will be streamed individually on Ajou’s YouTube channel starting in December. The program was sponsored by the University Innovation Support Program of the Ministry of Education and the National Research Foundation of Korea.

Lecture Program

Day 1 (November 24)

Park Hyung-ju (President, Ajou University): “Universities in a Connected World”

Seo Eun-guk (Professor of Psychology, Yonsei University): “Happiness Is Not a Concept, but an Experience”

Yang Dong-su (CEO, Deoham): “A Public-Rights Lawyer for Apartment Communities”

Park Jun-yeong (Attorney at Law): “But I Still Hope in Relationships”

Day 2 (November 25)

Choi Jae-cheon (Chair Professor, Ewha Womans University): “With COVID-19 and the Ecological Turn”

Choi Jin-seok (Chair, New Word New Action): “We Can Cross Only by Thinking”

Jang Kang-myeong (Writer): “An Age of Snack Information”

Kim Gyeong-il (Professor of Psychology, Ajou University): “How Should We Study in the Age of COVID-19?”

*Day 3 (November 26)

Woo Seok-hun (Professor of Economics, Sungkyul University): “In the Middle of COVID-19”

Kim Yeong-ran (Chair Professor of Law, Ajou University): “Being a Judge and Reading”

Nam Hyeong-do (Journalist, Money Today): “The Power of Truth That Makes Everything Possible”

Roh Myeong-woo (Professor of Sociology, Ajou University): “You Are Not Alone”

Prof. Kim Yeong-ran 

Chairman Choi Jin-seok (New Word New Action)