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‘Because of its geographical proximity to Incheon International Airport, the new Songdo campus will attract some of the world’s most distinguished scholars.’
September 11, 2009
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A. My big-picture goal is to turn Hankuk University of Foreign Studies into a “global base camp” to nurture talented and excellent “global multi-players.” In March 2008, HUFS opened an Asia-Pacific center of the University for Peace, a UN-affiliated master’s program. This is the third center of its kind in the world and the first UPeace center in Asia. Though Korea is now an economic powerhouse, it still has a low profile in the realm of international organizations. Compared to Southeast Asian countries such as India and the Philippines, which have many high-profile figures working at international organizations, Korea falls short. I believe the UPeace master’s program will help more Koreans get an opportunity to work at international organizations such as FIFA, Unesco, the United Nations, the World Bank and the World Health Organization. I’m hoping it will nurture another international leader who will follow in the footsteps of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. I also have mapped out a strategy called “triple 30 percent,” meaning 30 percent of full-time professors will be of foreign nationality, 30 percent of all classes will be taught in a foreign language and 30 percent of the student body will be comprised of international students. Currently, over 30 percent of our classes are already taught in a foreign language and over 30 percent of our full-time professors are foreign nationals. How would you assess your achievements when it comes to globalization during the first three years of your term? I’d say among the highlights is the decision to create a third campus, Songdo in Incheon. Because of its geographical proximity to Incheon International Airport, the new campus will attract some of the world’s most distinguished scholars. The Songdo campus will help HUFS evolve into a truly global university that interacts with the world. It will have a center for interpretation and translation, an international business center, a center for Korean language and culture and an international studies center. Guesthouses and dormitories will also be built to accommodate 2,000 students and visitors. I plan to send students majoring in interpretation and translation studies at the Seoul and Yongin campuses to Songdo for a month so that they can sharpen their knowledge and skills. The decision to build an English village on the Yongin campus in Gyeonggi is another memorable achievement. HUFS will provide space to build the English village, and the Yongin city government will support funding. In a survey conducted in July by the city government, 81.1 percent of the residents who responded said the region needs a “world culture village” where young children and students can learn about foreign languages and cultures. As an initial step, the university will open the English village. Because the country is already saturated with English villages, however, the university will then establish a world culture village. For example, villages for Chinese and Japanese and other languages will allow students to experience those cultures. The university offers 45 foreign language studies, and we can employ this accumulated know-how of foreign language education. Are you looking to any particular universities overseas as examples in your globalization drive? I have spent my term visiting universities abroad and signing scholastic and student exchange partnership agreements with over 100 universities. HUFS now has such partnerships with 308 universities from 71 countries. Of the many schools I visited, I was very impressed by the outstanding dormitory system at places like Harvard, New York University, Peking University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Most of the universities in the United States and China offer on-campus residential housing that can accommodate over 90 percent of their [freshman] students. That’s very rare at Korean universities, as the majority can accommodate only 10 percent of their entire student bodies. There are very few that can accommodate 20 to 30 percent of their students. To provide a good learning environment, I believe universities need to raise that percentage. My further goal is to provide a living place where students will feel like they are in their own homes. What do you hope to achieve during the rest of your term? At the time of my inauguration in 2006, I vowed to students, faculty members and alumni that I would raise the university development fund. HUFS had heavily relied on tuition in operating the campuses, and I figure that to foster more talented leaders, a strong financial backbone is a must. I raised over 87.7 billion won ($71.4 million), the largest amount ever for the university development fund. My goal is to raise that number to 100 billion won while I’m in office. The university announced its plan to bid for a pharmaceutical department on the Yongin campus after the Health Ministry announced its intentions to open more of these facilities at universities across the country. Why are you interested? Though there are many pharmaceutical departments in colleges across Korea, none of them actually focus on promoting the country’s pharmaceutical knowledge and technology at the global level. HUFS has partnerships with over 300 foreign universities, many of which have superior pharmaceutical departments. Yongin is largely populated with pharmaceutical-related industries and businesses, but the city does not have a pharmaceutical university. If HUFS successfully gets the green light from the government, it will be able to nurture global pharmaceutical experts who are fluent in foreign languages who can help the country ship enough vaccines and anti-viral drugs when diseases such as A(H1N1) influenza become pandemic . By Kim Mi-ju [mijukim@joongang.co.kr] Globalizing universities |
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