Kim Hang-geon, professor of pharmacy at Suncheon National University
The central theme running through Homer's epic "The Odyssey" is the paradox of hospitality and persecution.
For the hero Odysseus, excessive hospitality was a sweet swamp of complacency that bred idleness, while the persecution and contempt that threatened his life became the very catalyst that roused him and sharpened his resolve.
Watching the recent competition to select a candidate university for a national medical school in South Jeolla Province — and the turmoil that followed — I cannot help but recall the dialectical journey of hospitality and persecution that Odysseus endured.
The institution that has long basked in the full and wholehearted support — the "hospitality" — of South Jeolla Province is Mokpo National University.
For many years, under the warm patronage of the provincial government, Mokpo National University built a compelling case for establishing a medical school to address the healthcare void in the southwestern region.
Yet that comfortable fence of hospitality sometimes dulled the urgency to innovate and keep pace with a fiercely changing competitive landscape.
Suncheon National University, by contrast, faced an environment of relative neglect and discrimination — a relentless series of "persecutions."
While the provincial government long threw its weight behind Mokpo National University, Suncheon National University in the eastern region had to silently endure the sorrow of being pushed to the margins of policy priorities.
But just as Odysseus bided his time in a lowly posture, enduring every humiliation, Suncheon National University turned those years of deprivation and persecution into an opportunity to steel itself.
Through relentless self-improvement, the university demonstrated objective measures of institutional capacity — including its designation as a "Glocal University" — and ultimately secured its selection as the recommended institution for the new medical school.
Yet this outcome must never be framed as a one-sided victory or a monopoly by a single university.
Mokpo National University's painstaking efforts and historical legitimacy — more than 30 years of keeping alive the flame for a South Jeolla medical school and dedicating itself to protecting the right to healthcare for residents of the southwestern region — deserve respect in their own right.
The disappointment and resistance felt by residents of the southwestern region, whose long-held wish has been frustrated, is a natural and understandable pain. However, the time has come to rise above that pain with magnanimity, exercise restraint, and demonstrate the dignity befitting institutions of higher learning.
Prolonged and wasteful conflict could produce the worst possible outcome: the collapse of the very opportunity to establish a medical school in South Jeolla Province — a goal the entire region has pursued for decades.
At the same time, a weightier responsibility than the joy of victory now rests before Suncheon National University, which endured harsh marginalization to achieve its goal — the responsibility of integration.
This achievement is not a heroic triumph for Suncheon National University alone; it is a solemn duty entrusted to the university to fill the healthcare void for all residents of South Jeolla Province.
Suncheon National University must not grow complacent. On the contrary, it must demonstrate a broad vision — one that genuinely empathizes with and embraces the sense of loss and alienation felt by residents of the southwestern region.
Only by building a coherent, well-structured education and healthcare infrastructure that serves residents across all of South Jeolla Province — without dividing east from west — can the university pass through the enormous gateway of final government approval.
Odysseus's journey did not end with a revenge drama of slaying monsters. It was completed only when he returned to his homeland of Ithaca, healed the wounds of long conflict and war, and at last rebuilt a peaceful kingdom.
Mokpo National University, which has learned to step out from excessive hospitality and stand on its own, and Suncheon National University, which proved its competitiveness through adversity, must now meet on the single great road of guaranteeing the right to healthcare for the people of South Jeolla Province.
When the two universities move beyond conflict and toward solidarity, the aspiration that the people of South Jeolla Province have carried for more than 30 years will at last bear its safest and most lasting fruit.
parkds@heraldcorp.com
