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<div class="moz-text-html" lang="x-western"> <span lang="NL-BE"
style="">Dear All,<br>
Since Brother Anthony mentioned this subject, I have been hiding and
hoping that I could avoid saying anything, but I guess that I should
clarify my view before there is any misunderstanding.<br>
The University of Oxford has declared that Korean Studies will be
terminated from June 2007, unless sufficient funding is found to ensure
the continuation of the fledgling programme, preferably endowment
funding. I was interviewed by the
Chosun Ilbo on this matter and a reporter ran a short piece (see A
below). The Chosun Ilbo then also ran an editorial (B below), and they
published a short piece authored by myself and the same Chosun Ilbo
journalist who interviewed me (C below). I have given no interviews or
contributions to any other news outlet.<br>
The point made in the articles and especially in the editorial is
that if Korean Studies disappears from the University of Oxford, indeed
declines across Europe for lack of financial support, this will
adversely affect Korea, because it will reduce the number of people
</span><span lang="NL-BE" style="">who can interpret Korea in
its own terms </span><span lang="NL-BE" style="">to European and to
global society. Without such people, European journalists,
businesspeople, and government officials will be forced to solicit
information on Korea from Japanologists and Sinologists, currently a
common practice as many of you will know. Many of you are in North
America and Europe may appear unimportant, but I am sure that seeing
Europeans draw on Japanologists and Sinologists for information on
Korea can only be to the
disadvantage of Korean interests, and so the loss of Korean Studies
at Oxford and the hardships it faces elsewhere in Europe are worthy of
attention in Korea and worthy of support
by Korean government and business. The Korea Foundation has been very
generous, but their budget was only about USD $5,400,000 last year.
This is only 1% of the budget available to their counterpart, the Japan
Foundation. We all know how many requests we put to the Korea
Foundation, and we know how hard they work, but I am sure that very few
of us know how slim are their resources. To paraphrase a well-known
Brit, we are all very thankful to these few who have done so much for
so many </span><span lang="NL-BE" style="">with so little</span><span
lang="NL-BE" style="">.</span><br>
<span lang="NL-BE" style=""> Many of us hope that
the Korean government will see their way to expand the Korea
Foundation's budget, to target support to struggling European
programmes, and to enlist the aid of Korean businesses, who seem
strangely absent from the scene. According to the President of the
Korea Foundation, former Ambassador to France KwOn In-hyOk, part of the
reason for the absence of business interest must lie in the fact that
Korean corporations cannot currently obtain tax relief for gifts to
foreign institutions to support Korean Studies. Many of us would like
to see this law changed, and I have heard in the past day that a bill
is being proposed to the National Assembly to change the law.<br>
Some of you have raised the question of institutional commitment to
pick up posts after an initial three or five years of support. This is
a common arrangement, and Oxford thought that it could raise external
funding to endow its fledgling programme. We have been partially
successful, and over the 10 years we have been running, the Korea
Foundation has been asked to support us to somewhere under 70% of our
costs. Currently, the KF is only paying for 50% of our Instructor's
post to 2007 and providing no other support. There has been no
"cutback" in KF funding here. Rather, we have been somewhat successful
in raising outside funds from benefactors, and we continue to seek such
support. However, we have not been as successful as we had originally
hoped.</span><span lang="NL-BE" style=""> On top of this, the
University is facing a
financial crisis as is much of higher education across the UK and
Europe, and the University has decided to cut the programme. European
universities are having to adjust to the neoliberalism sweeping
Europe and the resulting curtailment of state budgets for education.
Budgets drop, but tution income remains low or nonexistent, as I will
explain below. Most institutions are state organs, or quasi-state,
quasi-private institutions as in the
case of Oxford, and European states are privatising and downsizing.
While Chinese Studies may be expanding in some places, Korean Studies
is being terminated, and even Japanese Studies is being cut back.
Japanese Studies, though, can fall back on a much larger potential
cushion supplied by the Japan Foundation and on large benefactions and
gifts from Japanese corporations. Korean Studies cannot.<br>
</span><span lang="NL-BE" style=""> This has become a long missive.
I am sorry, but I didn't raise this point on the mailbase, and I think
some clarity is needed, so please be a bit more patient.<br>
I would like to warn my concerned friends against seeing Europe as
somehow like the US or even Canada. One size does not fit all. Frank
is right that an endowment is best, particularly in the Oxford context,
where Japanese and Chinese Studies rely for nearly 50% of their
operating costs from endowment funds and a good 70-80% of the rest of
Oxford operates on endowment of one sort or another. The generosity of
outsiders to support this charity called the University of Oxford has
been the custom here for the past 800 years, and I dare say this won't
change. </span><span lang="NL-BE" style=""> Ann (we've never met; I
hope you don't mind my calling you Ann), </span><span lang="NL-BE"
style="">there are a few critical differences between universities in
Europe and the US and comparisons with the American case are usually
misleading. For example, a large reason for the existence of Korean
Studies in so many American universities is because the children of
Korean immigrants demanded courses on Korea and put pressure on
university administrations. Europe lacks this critical demand push
from below. As Ross says, Korean Studies is a fairly exotic subject in
Europe. Add to this the fact that there is generally no tuition
payment in continental Europe, so students add no income stream; they
merely use a service. Even at Oxford, which is widely regarded by my
European colleagues as "expensive", tuition for a Brit or EU
undergraduate student is about £3,000 or under USD $6,000 (my est. for
Harvard is USD $30,000? Rutgers website seems shut down?); for a
graduate student tuition runs about £5,000 or under USD $10,000. Of
course, non-EU students pay more, but do we want to recruit only
Americans or Koreans just to pay the bills? Rates are set by
government, so if we raise our tuition, we risk losing the research
grants that fund the sciences and the other constantly-dwindling
government support that we do receive. Considering that Oxford may be
the global leader in having the lowest student to teacher ratio, and it
must be one of the worst institutions in the English-speaking world for
tapping its alumni, I imagine that you can understand what financial
pressures we are under.<br>
Finally, the choices today are not what they were in 1992 or 1994,
when Ross argues that SOAS should have received the USD $500,000
seed-money that Oxford got. SOAS will always have Korean, because SOAS
was and is a creature of the UK Foreign Office. I recall talking to
Ross in the summer of 1994, as he was preparing to leave SOAS, in
something of an irate temper, as I recall, and among his charges was
the complaint that the Foreign Office expected free and tailored
instruction. I think the situation has changed, but SOAS is still able
to call on `government necessities' when pressed, and it still boasts
the rich complement of staff that Ross remembers: Pak Youngsook, Yeon
Jaehoon, Anders Karlsson, Keith Howard, and Grace Koh (my student). It
is the envy of Europe. Nevertheless, SOAS continues to struggle, as
does Sheffield, which has developed an expertise in modern Korean
society and economy. I won't even mention Durham, which closed its
entire East Asian programme, or Newcastle, where Korean language will
cease to exist from this coming September. We do mourn them, Ross, but
the numbness is taking over. </span><span lang="NL-BE" style="">Ross,
you're also mistaken to say that Oxford
doesn't want Korean. My colleagues do, and the students do, but around
here, you either
find an endowment or you fold</span><span lang="NL-BE" style="">,
because student fees just don't pay for anything. Perhaps you didn't
like the bloody-mindedness of the Brits, and that's part of the reason
why you left, but I admire it. They've taught me that there is virtue
in hanging on, because good things are worth the fight. One thing you
don't do, though, is fight against your friends and allies. My
colleagues at SOAS and Sheffield may correct me, but I don't think that
we see ourselves in competition with each other. We cater to different
constituencies and we provide different instruction. We don't think it
is healthy to have one `centre', because that risks corruption.
Consider how poor would be the US if Korean could be studied only at
Harvard and Hawaii. Now, consider what it would mean if Harvard were
not the financial behemoth we have today and because of its financial
restructuring it was forced to close down Korean Studies. This is what
it will mean if Korean goes at Oxford. <br>
<br>
Yours,<br>
Jay Lewis<br>
Oriental Institute, University of Oxford<br>
<br>
</span>
<p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span lang="EN-US">A) Original
Korean:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.chosun.com/national/news/200503/200503290389.html">http://www.chosun.com/national/news/200503/200503290389.html</a><o:p></o:p><br>
English
translation:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200503/200503290024.html">http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200503/200503290024.html</a><o:p></o:p></span><br>
</p>
<p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><br>
B) Chosun Ilbo Editorial<br>
</p>
<span lang="NL-BE" style="">Original
Korean: </span><a
href="http://www.chosun.com/editorials/news/200503/200503300467.html"><span
lang="NL-BE" style="">http://www.chosun.com/editorials/news/200503/200503300467.html</span></a><br>
English translation:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200503/200503300043.html">http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200503/200503300043.html</a><o:p></o:p><br>
<p class="MsoNormal">C) My Op-Ed piece in the Chosun Ilbo:<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.chosun.com/editorials/news/200503/200503310292.html">http://www.chosun.com/editorials/news/200503/200503310292.html</a><br>
</p>
</div>
Brother Anthony wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid425A1820.99F9A599@ccs.sogang.ac.kr">
<pre wrap="">The Korea Times editorial on April 8 about Korean Studies Overseas included the sentence: "Last month,
Oxford University announced that it decided to close its Korean studies program from June 2007 due to a
lack of funding." The editorial goes on to deplore this and question how the Korean government could allow
such a thing to happen. This was the first I had heard of this decision, but it seems to me that we should
share that sense of outrage if indeed it is the case that a refusal from the Korean side to continue to
provide funding is to blame. Are there other programs which might equally be subject to similar cutbacks? I
think that this List might have some opinions about this. The editorial seemed to suggest that there might
still be hope of saving the program if funding were found . . .? But it would be good to know what the
Korean government thinks it is doing to support Korean studies when this kind of thing happens.
(Professor) An Sonjae (Brother Anthony)
Sogang University, Seoul, Korea
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Dr. James B. Lewis
University Lecturer in Korean
Oriental Institute
University of Oxford
Pusey Lane
Oxford, OX1 2LE
United Kingdom
Email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:jay.lewis@orinst.ox.ac.uk">jay.lewis@orinst.ox.ac.uk</a>
Tel: +44-(0)1865-278200
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.orinst.ox.ac.uk/ea/korean/">http://www.orinst.ox.ac.uk/ea/korean/</a></pre>
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