GU Duke Triples Number of Korean Educators
This article is the 11th in a series of interviews with heads of the world's top universities. _ ED.
By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
Duke University has seen a three-fold increase in the number of Korean educators over the last six years. Richard H. Brodhead, president of the U.S. university, sees Korean faculty members as the key to attract more Korean students to the school.
``International faculty members have proven to be great recruiters of foreign students at both the graduate and undergraduate level. The presence of the international faculty makes Duke more culturally diverse and more cosmopolitan,'' Brodhead said in an interview with The Korea Times.
The number of South Korean scholars at Duke including professors, researchers, guest lecturers and specialists has increased sharply from 45 in 2000 to 152 in 2006, according to the school.
``A collateral benefit from recruiting internationally is that our new faculty members bring with them access to international institutions and research networks,'' he added.
Founded in 1924, Duke is a relatively young in comparison with other top American universities, but it has challenged new areas, particularly, in the field of international health and the environment with a spirit of entrepreneurship.
``There are constantly new buildings going up that support our programs and reflect our ambitions to improve the world in new ways. In just the last few years, you can see that in a new global health building, a new engineering complex and a new art museum,'' Brodhead said.
Duke has seen its in the number of international applicants double over the last five years. So much so that it has an admission officer who solely deals with international applications. The number of Korean students has risen in the last 10 years from 72 in 1997-1998 to 263 in 2006-2007.
Creativity, curiosity and ambition are needed qualities for Duke University hopefuls _ beyond high school grades and test scores, the president said.
Duke's curricula emphasize interdisciplinary education so that students can learn different viewpoints from other departments beyond their own majors. ``The interaction between schools and departments offers students a remarkable opportunity to approach their studies from multiple perspectives,'' Brodhead said.
``For instance, a public policy student interested in opening a school in Kenya for young girls might work with engineering students to design the school's water supply. And this is not a theoretical example _ our students are indeed building a school in Kenya this summer,'' he added.
Economics, psychology, political science, history and public policy _ in that order _ have been popular majors for students at Duke since 2000. The president believes college students should study liberal arts subjects so that they can prepare themselves to be astute problem solvers and be aware of the multiple dimensions of human experience and culture.
``Beyond equipping students with the skills they need to be successful post-college, we also see the liberal arts model as an approach to help our students grow,'' Brodhead said.
``After all, do all 18-year-olds really know what they want to do when they graduate, beyond what they may have been told they ought to do by their parents or other authority figures? College is a time to grow and to develop your best self, in ways that might not be obvious before a little intellectual experimentation,'' he added.
Duke also boasts of a beautiful campus nestled on affluent community that offers the cultural benefits of an urban area and the outdoor recreation opportunities of a more rural area.
Graduating from Yale in 1968, Brodhead received his Ph.D. there in 1972. After serving as chair of Yale's Department of English for six years, he was named dean of Yale College in 1993 and served in the post for 11 years until he became Duke's ninth president in 2004.
• Duke University was established by James Buchanan Duke as a memorial to his father, Washington Duke. In December 1924, the Duke Endowment was created which provided for the expansion of Trinity College into Duke University.
• The original Durham campus became known as the East Campus and served as the home of the Woman's College of Duke University until 1972, when the men's and women's undergraduate colleges merged.
• Built in 1932, the West Campus Duke Chapel _ with a 210-feet tower housing a 50-bell carillon _ is a symbol of the university. Washington Duke and his sons Benjamin and James are entombed in the Memorial Chapel.
• The Duke libraries, with more than 5 million volumes, rank among the top 10 private research libraries in the United States. Duke's Blue Devils _ William H. Lander and Mike Bradshaw of The Trinity Chronicle _ began the academic year 1922-23 referring to the athletic teams as the Blue Devils.
• Richard H. Brodhead, former dean of Yale College and the A. Bartlett Giamatti Professor of English at Yale University, is Duke University's ninth president and the 14th person to lead the institution since its founding as a Union Institute in 1838.