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| David W. Pershing, second from left, president of the University of Utah, poses with staff and a student at the University of Utah Asia Campus in Songdo, Incheon, Sept. 1, during the opening ceremony for the school's new building. / Courtesy of University of Utah Asia Campus |
By Chung Hyun-chae
David W. Pershing, president of the University of Utah, said the university's Asia campus at Songdo, Incheon, will offer four new courses ― two undergraduate and two graduate ― next year.
The undergraduate programs are for film and media arts and city and metropolitan planning, while the master's courses are for biomedical informatics and law.
For the law course, the campus plans to set up the S.J. Quinney College of Law.
The university is seeking approval for the new programs from the Ministry of Education in Korea.
"The film and media course will teach students how to create games and those jobs are very hot," Pershing told The Korea Times.
According to the university, film studies will focus on independent film while media studies will concentrate on computer animation.
"If the education ministry approves, we will have to add more high-performance computers in the computer lab in this new building," Pershing said.
He visited Korea from Aug. 29 to Sept. 3 to attend a ceremony marking the second anniversary of the school's Asia campus located at the Songdo Global Campus complex in Incheon.
The university also held an opening ceremony of a new building of the University of Utah Asia Campus that will be used as the lecture building.
"One of the advantages here is that the facilities are totally brand-new so our students have an opportunity to learn with this equipment," Pershing said.
Another notable course is biomedical informatics in which students can earn a degree from the School of Medicine at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States.
The University of Utah has been relatively strong in social sciences compared to the three other foreign universities nested at Songdo.
Currently, the university has three undergraduate programs ― communication, psychology and social work ― and one master's course in public health.
The number of undergraduate and graduate students attending the university's Asia campus stands at 229.
"Biomedical informatics is focused on big data and how people use big data to help both increase the quality of healthcare and predict what people might be susceptible to," Pershing said.
He said that the biomedical informatics course is a medical related course.
"They are responsible for the discovery of several cancer genes such as a breast cancer gene," said Chris Ireland, chief administrative officer at the University of Utah Asia Campus. "It is the way that people conduct genetic profiling of individuals in trying to identify genes."
"the department we are bringing to this campus, biomedical informatics, is the oldest biomedical informatics program in the world," Michael Hardman, chief global officer at the University of Utah, added.
Hardman also noted that city and metropolitan planning course is promising especially for Incheon.
"We are focusing on urban planning, especially smart city, which draws positive attention from both the Incheon city government as well as businesses," he said.
Pershing was confident in the quality of education at the Asia campus.
"The classes are small and the ratio is better here (than at the main campus in Utah). The students at the Incheon campus are getting more individualized attention," he added.
