The Student Center student cafeteria, previously run by Riaeni La Matinee, and now taken over by the KHU Cooperatives

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The Student Center Cafeteria Management Committee (SCCMC) was created to oversee cafeteria operations, addressing hygiene problems caused by the former meal provider, Riaeni La Matinee. The committee holds monthly meetings to share operational results and feedback with its members, including representatives from various groups in Kyung Hee University (KHU). The committee succeeded in its initial goal—removing the vendor after their repeated issues. However, the committee now seems to have lost its value by being stuck in the past.

The cafeteria is currently managed by the KHU Cooperatives, a nonprofit group whose primary purpose is reinvesting profits back into the community. It has served on the Seoul Campus for two decades and now provides 40 services on the campus, demonstrating that it

can effectively work with the University to expand and stabilize in-campus welfare services. Therefore, Global Campus now has an opportunity to further improve its welfare system.

Despite the changing realities, the SCCMC remains stuck in the past. The committee obsesses over minor flaws, such as undercooked rice or inattentive student workers, just as it did for Riaeni La Matinee. When it is faced with forward-looking discussions—like how profits could benefit students or how the Cooperatives’s services could expand—the members remain silent.

Judging by its behavior, the committee seems more intent on asserting control over the other groups than on delivering genuine benefits to the KHU community. For example, a member claimed to be concerned about student workers, raising issues such as excessive workload and the risk of musculoskeletal disorders. In reality, however, these workers perform only simple tasks, like wiping desks. This makes it clear that the committee has little understanding of the actual situation on site. Rather than focusing on what truly benefits students, it appears more interested in restricting the KHU Cooperatives.

The foundation of the problem lies in the meeting atmosphere. It is as if there is an unspoken rule that at least one flaw must be pointed out in every session. No matter how the KHU Cooperatives showed new services or business surpluses, the committee became paralyzed by its fixation on finding something to blame.

At this point, distrusting the KHU Cooperatives is enough. Before it moved into Global Campus, the General Affair Team contacted Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Global Campus Cooperatives to run the Student Center cafeterias. Turning away from the KHU Cooperatives and seeking outside groups to manage campus facilities already reveals its reluctance. Yet, this refusal to work with KHU Cooperatives needs to stop at this point. As KHU Co-operatives begin their operations, continuing to restrict the KHU Cooperatives who already began the service will only result in outdated welfare services.

To enhance the quality and quantity of campus welfare services, the SCCMC must change their approach. As the only official meeting for the KHU Cooperatives’s operation on Global Campus, it needs to discuss the long-term vision. If the committee continues merely complaining about a speck of dust on tables like now, the Global Campus will never improve its welfare services.

Now is the Global Campus’s last chance to bring about positive change. President Kim Jin-sang, who has supported the KHU Cooperatives in contributing to campus welfare services, serves only for a limited term. Likewise, the KHU Cooperatives has a five-year operating mandate. This means the present moment is the right time for stakeholders to pursue improvements in welfare services in collaboration with the KHU Cooperatives. If this opportunity is missed, no one can be sure when such opportunity will resurface. The chance is here—seize it, and return its benefits to the KHU community.