No, unfortunately the issue has not been resolved and Myongji’s final decision is yet to be announced.
The current plan was submitted to the Ministry of Education. Now our last hope is that the Ministry would suggest amendments which in return the decision makers can use as a good opportunity to increase the current low student number according to a Ministry’s guideline published on December 16th. According to that press release, university quotas can be adjusted more freely than before in the process of integrating and restructuring universites. In order to establish a new department, there would be no need to reduce the quota of an established department to meet the former strict quota limit of the integrated university. In other words, according to this new regulation, Myongji University can consider the continuation of their baduk, philosophy, maths and physics departments and still establish trendy new departments.
Public media (newspaper articles, Baduk TV, social media) including opinion polls (in English, Korean, Chinese) are important means for us to keep voicing our position.
This being said, I appreciate all of your interest, feedback and comments. Thank you very much!
I’ll keep you updated.