Robert Laughlin’s stint as president of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Daejeon, South Korea, comes to an end next month. The Ministry of Science and Technology decided in April not to renew his two-year contract after some 90% of KAIST professors gave him a vote of no-confidence and nearly all deans and department chairs quit their administrative posts to protest his continuing in the job.

In naming the physics Nobel laureate president in 2004, the ministry apparently hoped to raise the international visibility and stature of KAIST. As a foreigner, Laughlin was at an advantage for introducing change, says KAIST vice president Sang Soo Kim.

Some of Laughlin’s ideas were good, Kim says. “But he failed to build mutual trust between him and the professors.” Also working against Laughlin, Kim adds, “were his lack of experience running a university and his confrontational style of management.”

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