[KS] Students campaign for Korean studies at Yale, The Korea Times, February 15, 2013

[Yoo Kwang-On]

 Students campaign for Korean studies at Yale
By Kim Jae-won

A group of students at Yale University are campaigning to establish a
Korean studies program there.

“We petition the Yale administration to establish a Korean studies program
built on a Korean concentration within the East Asian Studies major,” said
the board launched by the Korean Studies Initiative at Yale, an association
of Korean students which promotes academic research and activities on the
country.

The petition says that Korean studies is an indispensable asset considering
the increasing role that Korea plays at the global level as well as a key
region for understanding East Asia as a whole.

Currently, the American university offers Chinese and Japanese studies
programs only under its East Asian Studies major.

The petition said that it is a “shame” that Yale neglects such a relevant
academic field because other prestigious U.S. colleges, such as Harvard,
Columbia and Berkeley, are provide Korean studies programs with abundant
academic resources.

However, the college administration is reluctant to offer an academic
program on the country due to financial reasons.

Yale Daily News reported earlier this month that despite the importance of
these academic concerns, budgetary issues will ultimately determine whether
Yale creates a Korean studies concentration in the near future, quoting
Edward Kamens, chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and
Literatures.

“In order for the teaching of and study of East Asia as a culture to be
complete, we should at the very least add two ladder faculty position that
would focus on Korea. We currently have none,” Kamens was quoted as saying
by the college daily.

As Yale lacks a Korean Studies program, students who seek to study the East
Asian country further have often pursued graduate studies at peer
institutions with capable programs on Korea, the petition said.

To prevent such cases, it urged the college’s administration to secure a
tenure track professorship that focuses on Korea, and more classes in the
area of Korean Studies.

The petition titled “Establish Korean Studies at Yale” drew more than 200
signatures so far since its launch earlier this month. The association
plans to get signatures offline later this month to spread the movement.

The petition said that there has been student demand for a Korean studies
program for the last 20 years. Enrollment has steadily increased in Korean
language classes, and current students have expressed a desire to major in
Korean Studies if available, it added.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://koreanstudies.com/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreanstudies.com/attachments/20130215/c008155f/attachment.html>