November 10, 2005
Key officials and professors from St. John’s University attended
a celebration of the 30-year academic collaboration that exists
with Yeungnam University at a commemorative banquet and College of
Law Symposium on November 1 at the Yeungnam campus in Gyeongsan,
Gyeongbuk, the Republic of Korea.
“St. John’s University was the first of Yeungnam’s international
affiliates,” says Reverend Michael
Carroll, C.M., St. John’s executive vice president, who headed
up the four-person delegation to the event. “Yeungnam’s
administration cherishes our special relationship.” The large,
private, Korean university--with more than 35,000 students-- now
boasts academic ties with 79 universities and institutions in 13
countries.
St. John’s School of Law Professor Keri
Gould spoke on American legal education at the Symposium on
“Globalization & the Role of the Law School.” Also in
attendance were Special Assistant to the President and Executive
Director of the Office of Global Studies Tony Bonaparte, and
Accounting Professor Yeong-chan
Choi (who graduated from Yeungnam and is a full-time tenured
faculty member in The Peter J. Tobin College of Business).
The St. John’s delegation was treated royally during its
four-day stay in Korea, says Father Carroll. “They held a banquet
for us following the Symposium, and we were entertained by students
who played traditional Korean music on ancient instruments. The
students played beautifully on many difficult instruments.
View the photo
gallery.
“They did everything to make us feel welcome, including
projecting a copy of our university web home page onto the wall and
printing a beautiful program with the history of our collaboration.
They also took us on a wonderful tour of the National Museum of
Korea and to historic sites. They are extremely hospitable people
and they have a very impressive campus.”
A delegation of Yeungnam University professors celebrated the
sisterhood with St. John’s on the Queens campus last summer.
Yeungnam’s President Tong Ki Woo would like to send 1,000 students
to study abroad each year, says Father Carroll, and half of them to
English-speaking countries.
Academic collaboration between St. John’s and Yeungnam has
included an exchange of professors and students and a joint
five-year, 150-hour accounting program (initiated by Professor
Choi) in which Yeungnam students can receive a master’s in
accounting from St. John’s and a bachelor’s at Yeungnam by spending
the last two years of a five-year program here.
Professor Choi has been instrumental in revitalizing the long
relationship with Yeungnam, the largest university in Korea and one
of the most prominent in Asia. He was also an exchange program
professor there for a semester in 2002. Although Choi, now a
naturalized American, hails from Korea, he says that many Yeungnam
courses are taught in English and that the university welcomes
English-speaking exchange professors.
In September, St. John’s College of Pharmacy Professors Kwon H.
Kim and Chul-Hoon Kwan addressed the
International Symposium on Pharmaceutical Sciences in Drug
Development at the Yeungnam University College of
Pharmacy. This conference, like many with international
attendees at Yeungnam, was conducted in English.