A Team of Undergraduate Students Won the Grand Prize at the 21st National University Student Paper Contest
- Date2023.12.15
- 5341
Suwa Kang (Public Administration), Jinju Kim (Public Administration), and Sumin Jeon (French) won the Grand Prize with their paper titled “A Study on Cooling Center: Heatwave-vulnerable Population in Seoul Metropolitan City” at the 21st National University Student Paper Contest on Public Administration on December 8th (Fri).
The National University Student Paper Contest on Public Administration is hosted by the Korean Association for Public Administration (KAPA) and sponsored by Dae Young Publishing Company. The contest recognizes the outstanding paper on public administration written by students majoring in public administration or interdisciplinary studies to enhance the student’s capacity as a researcher and boost the student’s interest in public administration studies.
Suwa Kang, Jinju Kim, and Sumin Jeon analyzed if the locations of Cooling Centers, one of heatwave safety programs in Seoul, are well-distributed in terms of the accessibility of heatwave-vulnerable populations (elderly people, especially those who live alone or on national basic livelihood benefit) by scaling and standardizing to show the policy implications of Cooling Centers in “A Study on Heatwave Shelter: Heatwave-vulnerable Population in Seoul Metropolitan City.”
The team members first met at the Ewha Public Administration Society (EPAS), one of the public administration departmental societies, and signed up for the contest based on their interest in public administration studies. “From choosing our topic and methodology, and analyzing data to drawing a conclusion, everything was difficult. But the continuous discussion with teammates and seeking advice from professors helped us write better papers." The team said.
“Writing this paper was an experience for me to learn the right methods to find and analyze social issues, in addition to reflecting on the purpose of government policies and what can be done to meet the goal of policy.” Suwa Kang said. “The heatwave of this summer made me feel the necessity of this research from the bottom of my heart.” Jinju Kim said. “Consideration of the locations of cooling centers regarding the accessibility of the vulnerable population in the decision-making process of heatwave-related policies is vital. I hope related discussions can be heard by policymakers.” Sumin Jeon said. “While using GIS and SGIS to visualize the issues in the policies and propose the solutions, my dream of helping those who are not reached out by the helping hands of laws and policies became more clear.”