Pursuing the Idea of World-Class Universities in Korea: Faculty and Administrator Perspectives

[Purpose] Recognizing the significant role of higher education in today's knowledge economy, many countries have aggressively participated in building world-class universities. The purpose of this study is to understand how local actors, namely faculty and administrators, made sense of and defined the idea and pursuit of WCUs in the context of non-Western countries, Korea. We used the concept of glonacal heuristic to consider three dimensions of higher education activities—global, national, and local (Marginson & Rhoades, 2002) in Korean higher education. [Methods] We conducted interviews with 22 faculty and university administrators from three top universities in Korea. [Results] Findings showed that faculty and administrators defined the WCU idea differently, despite drawing upon the same sources of global ideas, national policy context, and local matters. Their definition either emphasized the global and national or were rather mediated by the local. We also found tensions between faculty in STEM fields and those in non-STEM fields, in conforming to the WCU efforts. [Conclusion] Based on these findings, we discussed theoretical and practical implications.