22 Out of 34 New Professor are Non-Yonsei Graduates, Including 18 International Faculty Among the 34 new Yonsei faculty for 2009 Fall semester, some 22 graduated from other undergraduate universities. The number makes 65% of the newly appointed faculty from outside of Yonsei, the highest percentage ever (for a single semester) for newly appointed faculty for far. It is also the first time among the top 3 universities (Seoul National University, Yonsei University, and Korea University) to have more faculty who graduated from other universities per semester. Yonsei University has been known to have a strong culture of inbreeding in professor recruitment, along with the Seoul National University. This semester that perception was clearly challenged. The report on this changing trend in professor appointment was released on 24 August by Yonsei University. Among the 35 faculty members hired for the fall semester, only 12 (35%) are graduates of Yonsei. Only 10 (44%) of 23 newly appointed faculty in the Spring semester graduated outside of Yonsei. "I think Yonsei is getting out of the culture of 'inbreeding' and will revitalize creative exchange of academic fields," Lee Heon-mook, the manager of academic affairs team, said. The reason of the change has a lot to do with the rising number of young doctorates graduated from foreign universities (from undergraduate level) and a recent trend in professor appointment to hire famous professors. There are 15 foreign professors (48%) among the 34 newly appointed faculty for 2009 Fall semester. Some 17 have been full-time faculty in the top universities around the globe, such as KAIST, Korea University and Iowa State University. According to Professor Huh Hyeon-seung from the Department of Economics that appointed all 3 new professors from outside of Yonsei, it is "a result of objective evaluation that looked into previous research outcomes and test lecture, not the names of universities applicants graduated from, and this trend will become more popular with the pressure of globalization and stress on academic outcomes." Among the 22 professors from outside of Yonsei, 5 professors were SNU graduates. According to the Ministry of Education Science and Technology, 23% of full-time faculty of 4-year universities are graduates of the universities they work for. In case of the SNU, the percentage goes up to 90%. Such numbers raised questions regarding the problem of rigidness in academia. The percentage is 65% for Yonsei, and 61% for Korea University. The Decree on Educational Employee Appointment last amended in 1999 regulates one third of newly appointed faculty to come from outside of the hiring universities.