Life Summary
Synn Il-hi is the president of Keimyung University. He began his latest term in July 2024, marking his tenth consecutive tenure as president.

After failing twice in a row to secure selection for the government’s large-scale Glocal University 30 project, he is making a third attempt, this time presenting a model focused on the internationalization of education.

He was born on April 15, 1939, in Cheongsong, North Gyeongsang Province, the son of Synn Tae-sik, a former president of Keimyung University.

After graduating from Kyesung Middle School in Daegu, he moved to the United States, where he attended Kent School and graduated from Trinity University. He went on to earn a graduate degree in German literature from Princeton University.

He worked as an assistant professor at Queens College of the City University of New York and at Kiel University in Germany before being appointed professor in the Department of German Language and Literature at Yonsei University in 1972.

In 1974, he joined Keimyung University, where his father was serving as president, and just four years later, he assumed the presidency himself. Since then, he has been inaugurated as president of the university ten times. During the roughly three years when he was not serving as president, he acted as chairman of the university’s board of directors.

He became involved in a legal dispute with the Gyeongbuk Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church over the ownership of the university.

He also faced clashes with the faculty council over the abolition of the direct presidential election system, which sparked controversy over alleged privatization of the school.

He has served as president of the Korea–Poland Association (Pro Polonia) and as athletes’ village director for both the Daegu Summer Universiade and the Daegu World Championships in Athletics.

He is also chairman of the Haengso Scholarship Foundation and of the board of Keisung Academy, the school’s governing corporation.

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