[KS] Koreanstudies Digest, Vol 58, Issue 27

[Bruce Cumings]

Mike and Mark are both entirely right, but it goes deeper: the Korean  
government, Korean corporations, and in the 1970s the KCIA (as the  
Congressional investigations of Koreagate proved, taking testimony  
under threat of perjury), showered money on Berkeley in general and  
Robert Scalapino in particular. He was Berkeley's sole "Korea expert"  
for decades, in spite of having scholarly qualifications in the Japan  
field. He was eventually replaced by a China expert who happened to  
be Korean. If anyone were to do an honest evaluation of how all that  
money was spent, and especially in what sense it helped to build  
genuine Korean studies at Berkeley, I believe it would be a scandal.  
Perhaps I am wrong, but we wouldn't be able to make a judgment from  
the China and Japan folks there, who just went about their business,  
looking the other way. Berkeley had the beginnings of a genuine Korea  
program by the mid-60s; here we are in 2008. What exactly was  
accomplished in the past forty years?

Bruce Cumings


On Apr 24, 2008, at 8:56 AM, koreanstudies-request at koreaweb.ws wrote:

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> <<------------ KoreanStudies mailing list DIGEST ------------>>
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: korean studies at the university of california in
>       jeopardy (Mark Peterson)
>    2. Re: korean studies at the university of california in
>       jeopardy (rmo at mail.utexas.edu)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:22:50 -0600
> From: Mark Peterson <markpeterson at byu.edu>
> Subject: Re: [KS] korean studies at the university of california in
> 	jeopardy
> To: Korean Studies Discussion List <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
> Message-ID: <0EDE3CE2-16DB-46E1-9526-B2909356076F at byu.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
>
>
> 	My response is much like Mike's.  Berkeley has taken Korean money for
> years and made nothing but excuses about not being able to hire a
> worthy professor of Korean Studies in any field.  A Korean "Center" --
> called a center so it qualified for Korean money -- without a
> professor and without a major!  It has been one of the worst
> situations in our field.  And in the same time frame, somehow, UCLA,
> in the same state system, has blossomed.  That speaks volumes about
> Berkeley's disingenuousness.
>
> 	But the issue runs deeper than the shoddy treatment Korean Studies
> has been given at Berkeley.  What happens there -- Korea gets the cuts
> when the times get hard -- is all too typical of many other
> universities.  "Heavens!, we can't cut our growing Chinese program."
> "Good golly, miss Molly, we can't cut our Japanese program."  "Our
> only choice is to cut the Korean program -- after all, it's the
> smallest of the three and is struggling, dontya know." [or in
> Berkeley's case -- cut Chinese by 58%, Japanese by 40%, but Korean by
> 100% -- that's only fair!]
>
> 	 As a field, we've made tremendous progress in recent years, but when
> the times get tough, Korean Studies, like Korea itself, is all
> together too often victimized by its neighbors.  Count the votes.  In
> any department, the Koreanists are out-numbered.  So, what can you
> expect.
>
> 	So, go ahead, blame Arnold Schwarzenegger.  But the problem runs much
> deeper than one governor and one economic downturn.  Look back at the
> nameless deans, department chairs, and others who have made the anti-
> Korean decisions at Berkeley for years.  And as the economy worsens,
> look for similar hits at other campuses.
>
> 	Wow!  That came out dark, didn't it?!
>
> best regards to you all,
> Mark
>
>
>
>
> On Apr 23, 2008, at 8:39 AM, michael robinson wrote:
>
>>   With all due respect to Berkeley and its pretensions to being a
>> flagship campus, they have ignored Korean Studies for so long, it is
>> hard for me to work up any pity for the program now in peril.  Other
>> campuses and centers are alive and well, and as far as I?m concerned
>> Berkeley can sit on there Korea money for another ten years.
>>
>> Mike R.
>>
>> From: koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws [mailto:koreanstudies- 
>> bounces at koreaweb.ws
>> ] On Behalf Of Christine Hong
>> Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 12:18 AM
>> To: koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
>> Subject: [KS] korean studies at the university of california in
>> jeopardy
>>
>> those of you who subscribe to this listserv might already be aware
>> of this, but arnold schwarzenegger's education budget cuts are
>> imperiling korean studies not only at uc berkeley but also within
>> the whole university of california system.  there currently is no
>> major in korean in berkeley's east asian languages and cultures
>> (ealc) department; in order for a korean major to exist and for
>> graduate students to be able to pursue an advanced degree in korean
>> at berkeley, the department must have at least two professors who
>> specialize in korean, and berkeley's ealc department does not meet
>> even this minimum requirement.  this is, without question, a
>> travesty, given that berkeley is the flagship campus in the
>> university of california system--a school that both touts itself as
>> the major university in the pacific rim and can boast of a near-
>> majority of ethnic asian students, amongst whom there are many
>> koreans and korean americans.  the problem at hand, however, is less
>> that berkeley's ealc program doesn't have a major program, but that,
>> with the governor's budget cuts, even the korean minor program is
>> threatened.  (i would add that departments like french are far less
>> impacted, despite the statistical evidence pointing to declining
>> undergraduate enrollment in french classes.)  at present, there is
>> just one full-time faculty member in korean--an assistant professor
>> who is currently on leave.  with the exception of this professor,
>> all of the ealc faculty in korean are language instructors; it is
>> important to recognize that their temporary hiring status affords
>> them no longterm job security.  should they be fired as a result of
>> these budget cuts--as currently looks likely--ealc's korean program,
>> which sustains just a minor at present, will be utterly decimated,
>> unlike the chinese and japanese programs, which will be adversely
>> affected but not disabled beyond repair.
>>
>> professor alan tansman, the chair of berkeley's ealc, has written
>> the following public protest, which i pass along to you:
>>
>> The Governor?s budget cuts have finally trickled down to the
>> university departments, and it seems that some were hit more than
>> others. East Asian Languages and Cultures received a 28% cut to what
>> is called its TAS budget, out of which 90% of our language teaching
>> budget comes. This means that for next year we will be cutting 40%
>> of our Japanese, 58% of our Chinese, and 66% of our language
>> classes. The most advanced levels will be cut. In Korean, which
>> right now does not have a Major program, even the Minor program is
>> under threat.  Chinese already turns away over 100 a students every
>> year; this will get worse. We will likely have to ?dumb down? the
>> Chinese and Japanese majors to accommodate the fewer classes we can
>> offer. Also, we will likely have to exclude from the classes all
>> students not in the College of Letters and Sciences (Engineering,
>> humanities graduate students, law, etc.), and perhaps all non-majors
>> and non-minors. The cut is particularly dire because every student
>> cut from the program is cut not just from one class but from all
>> those that follow in the language sequence. Of course these cuts
>> mean firing qualified teachers, who are difficult to find. Once hurt
>> like this, the program will be hard to rebuild. The level of cuts in
>> other departments, and other language programs, is not clear, but
>> east Asian Languages seems to have been hit far harder.
>>
>> i'm a postdoc here at berkeley in the english department--my name's
>> christine hong--and i'm hoping to bring attention to and
>> mobilization on this issue.  please feel free to contact me at  
>> cjhong at berkeley.edu
>>  with suggestions, advice, feedback.  many thanks.
>
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:33:44 -0500
> From: rmo at mail.utexas.edu
> Subject: Re: [KS] korean studies at the university of california in
> 	jeopardy
> To: Korean Studies Discussion List <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
> Message-ID: <1209040424.48107e28d7c97 at webmailapp4.cc.utexas.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Dear Christine and all,
>
> Without knowing the details as well as many of you do, I certainly  
> take Mike and
> Mark's points and accumulated frustration with Berkeley; where I  
> write from (the
> University of Texas) can or at least could previously be accused of  
> the same
> sort of dithering with Korea money.  And yet I would also like to  
> think that it
> remains in all of our interests for struggling programs like  
> Berkeley's to
> survive and eventually grow - all the graduate students being  
> produced by the
> flourishing programs out there will need someplace to go.  Even if  
> one says
> good riddance to Berkeley, having a public conversation on  
> defending Korean
> studies in times of budget contraction might not be a bad idea at this
> historical juncture, because the problems ARE common - even in  
> Texas, with oil
> at $117/bbl, there is pressure to cut the "soft money" budget out  
> of which
> language instruction takes place.  So I'd at least like to try to  
> address
> Christine's question.
>
> One, yes, you may be in a bad situation to the extent that you need  
> to argue on
> a statewide basis - if one is a cost-cutting UC system regent, one  
> may see
> Korean studies programs at UCLA, Irvine, UCSB, etc. (forgive me if  
> I missed
> you) and ask, why UCB too?
>
> Nonetheless, it seems to me that your EALC chair has done something  
> smart in
> saying that the first thing we're going to do is restrict our  
> classes to
> majors.  Can someone else on your campus be made to defend the  
> necessity of
> Korean?  You seem to be thinking in terms of mobilizing the Korean  
> Students
> Association and Korean studies professors, and that's good, but  
> that's not
> where the money is.
>
> (A story: the Provost here recently called a meeting to try to  
> bring together
> and coordinate the different groups interested in Korea on the UT  
> campus.  I
> had never heard of most of these people.  There was a group in the  
> business
> school who wants to establish a "technology transfer  
> incubator" [whatever that
> is] in Korea, another doing something similar in electrical  
> engineering [with
> help from Samsung], etc.  All without talking to one another.  On  
> the one hand,
> as business/science types do most of these probably regard language/ 
> culture
> training as irrelevant, or at best a service function, but on the  
> other the
> Korea instructional budget would be a rounding error for any of them.)
>
> So, UCB certainly has forces in business, sciences/engineering,  
> medicine,
> policy, etc. who care about Korea because they care about  
> semiconductors or
> biotech or whatever.  You won't get any of their money directly,  
> I'm sure, but
> they carry weight that we, bluntly, do not.  Can they be made to  
> say that
> Korean matters to them in a way that French, or German, or these  
> days maybe
> even Japanese do not?
>
> Sorry to hear about the state of thing in California.
>
> Rob Oppenheim
> UT Austin
>
>
> Quoting Mark Peterson <markpeterson at byu.edu>:
>
>>
>> 	My response is much like Mike's.  Berkeley has taken Korean money  
>> for
>> years and made nothing but excuses about not being able to hire a
>> worthy professor of Korean Studies in any field.  A Korean  
>> "Center" --
>> called a center so it qualified for Korean money -- without a
>> professor and without a major!  It has been one of the worst
>> situations in our field.  And in the same time frame, somehow, UCLA,
>> in the same state system, has blossomed.  That speaks volumes about
>> Berkeley's disingenuousness.
>>
>> 	But the issue runs deeper than the shoddy treatment Korean Studies
>> has been given at Berkeley.  What happens there -- Korea gets the  
>> cuts
>> when the times get hard -- is all too typical of many other
>> universities.  "Heavens!, we can't cut our growing Chinese program."
>> "Good golly, miss Molly, we can't cut our Japanese program."  "Our
>> only choice is to cut the Korean program -- after all, it's the
>> smallest of the three and is struggling, dontya know." [or in
>> Berkeley's case -- cut Chinese by 58%, Japanese by 40%, but Korean by
>> 100% -- that's only fair!]
>>
>> 	 As a field, we've made tremendous progress in recent years, but  
>> when
>> the times get tough, Korean Studies, like Korea itself, is all
>> together too often victimized by its neighbors.  Count the votes.  In
>> any department, the Koreanists are out-numbered.  So, what can you
>> expect.
>>
>> 	So, go ahead, blame Arnold Schwarzenegger.  But the problem runs  
>> much
>> deeper than one governor and one economic downturn.  Look back at the
>> nameless deans, department chairs, and others who have made the anti-
>> Korean decisions at Berkeley for years.  And as the economy worsens,
>> look for similar hits at other campuses.
>>
>> 	Wow!  That came out dark, didn't it?!
>>
>> best regards to you all,
>> Mark
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Apr 23, 2008, at 8:39 AM, michael robinson wrote:
>>
>>>   With all due respect to Berkeley and its pretensions to being a
>>> flagship campus, they have ignored Korean Studies for so long, it is
>>> hard for me to work up any pity for the program now in peril.  Other
>>> campuses and centers are alive and well, and as far as I?m concerned
>>> Berkeley can sit on there Korea money for another ten years.
>>>
>>> Mike R.
>>>
>>> From: koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws
>> [mailto:koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws
>>> ] On Behalf Of Christine Hong
>>> Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 12:18 AM
>>> To: koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
>>> Subject: [KS] korean studies at the university of california in
>>> jeopardy
>>>
>>> those of you who subscribe to this listserv might already be aware
>>> of this, but arnold schwarzenegger's education budget cuts are
>>> imperiling korean studies not only at uc berkeley but also within
>>> the whole university of california system.  there currently is no
>>> major in korean in berkeley's east asian languages and cultures
>>> (ealc) department; in order for a korean major to exist and for
>>> graduate students to be able to pursue an advanced degree in korean
>>> at berkeley, the department must have at least two professors who
>>> specialize in korean, and berkeley's ealc department does not meet
>>> even this minimum requirement.  this is, without question, a
>>> travesty, given that berkeley is the flagship campus in the
>>> university of california system--a school that both touts itself as
>>> the major university in the pacific rim and can boast of a near-
>>> majority of ethnic asian students, amongst whom there are many
>>> koreans and korean americans.  the problem at hand, however, is less
>>> that berkeley's ealc program doesn't have a major program, but that,
>>> with the governor's budget cuts, even the korean minor program is
>>> threatened.  (i would add that departments like french are far less
>>> impacted, despite the statistical evidence pointing to declining
>>> undergraduate enrollment in french classes.)  at present, there is
>>> just one full-time faculty member in korean--an assistant professor
>>> who is currently on leave.  with the exception of this professor,
>>> all of the ealc faculty in korean are language instructors; it is
>>> important to recognize that their temporary hiring status affords
>>> them no longterm job security.  should they be fired as a result of
>>> these budget cuts--as currently looks likely--ealc's korean program,
>>> which sustains just a minor at present, will be utterly decimated,
>>> unlike the chinese and japanese programs, which will be adversely
>>> affected but not disabled beyond repair.
>>>
>>> professor alan tansman, the chair of berkeley's ealc, has written
>>> the following public protest, which i pass along to you:
>>>
>>> The Governor?s budget cuts have finally trickled down to the
>>> university departments, and it seems that some were hit more than
>>> others. East Asian Languages and Cultures received a 28% cut to what
>>> is called its TAS budget, out of which 90% of our language teaching
>>> budget comes. This means that for next year we will be cutting 40%
>>> of our Japanese, 58% of our Chinese, and 66% of our language
>>> classes. The most advanced levels will be cut. In Korean, which
>>> right now does not have a Major program, even the Minor program is
>>> under threat.  Chinese already turns away over 100 a students every
>>> year; this will get worse. We will likely have to ?dumb down? the
>>> Chinese and Japanese majors to accommodate the fewer classes we can
>>> offer. Also, we will likely have to exclude from the classes all
>>> students not in the College of Letters and Sciences (Engineering,
>>> humanities graduate students, law, etc.), and perhaps all non-majors
>>> and non-minors. The cut is particularly dire because every student
>>> cut from the program is cut not just from one class but from all
>>> those that follow in the language sequence. Of course these cuts
>>> mean firing qualified teachers, who are difficult to find. Once hurt
>>> like this, the program will be hard to rebuild. The level of cuts in
>>> other departments, and other language programs, is not clear, but
>>> east Asian Languages seems to have been hit far harder.
>>>
>>> i'm a postdoc here at berkeley in the english department--my name's
>>> christine hong--and i'm hoping to bring attention to and
>>> mobilization on this issue.  please feel free to contact me at
>> cjhong at berkeley.edu
>>>  with suggestions, advice, feedback.  many thanks.
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> End of Koreanstudies Digest, Vol 58, Issue 27
> *********************************************

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