By Do Je-hae, Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporters
Institutes for higher learning should double their efforts to globalize, the head of the University of Cambridge said Wednesday in Seoul.
"Today, a great undergraduate education requires an international student body. We live in a mobile society and challenges we face today are best addressed through international collaboration," Vice Chancellor professor Alison Richard said in an exclusive interview with The Korea Times at the Shilla Hotel.
"Although I am not in a place to offer any kind of advice to Korean university administrators, I believe their pursuits of international strategies are in the right direction."
Richard ― the first female head at Cambridge ― is set to receive an honorary degree from Ehwa Womans University today, on her first visit to Korea since her 2003 appointment.
The current Chancellor of the University is the Duke of Edinburgh, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II. The office of Chancellor, which is held for life, is mainly ceremonial, while the Vice Chancellor is the de facto principal academic and administrative officer.
It has taken more than 750 years for Cambridge to take women's education seriously. "Women were not fully admitted to take degrees until 1948, meaning that Ewha and Cambridge started women's education around the same time. I look forward to continued partnerships between the two great institutions with distinct history in opening the doors of knowledge to women," she said.
"I sense a great deal of similarity between Korea and Cambridgeshire, which is the high-tech and biotechnology center of Europe," the professor said, as she called Korea's high-tech presence a "phenomenal success."
"I generally tend to go where our alumni are - many are from the United States, India, Hong Kong, China and Singapore." she said, explaining her commitment to building a network of alumni globally, including more than 200 Koreans.
Cambridge has been a staunch supporter of Korean studies since 1947. "Korean studies are now an integral part of our East Asian studies program," Richard said. Korean is available as a part of undergraduate degrees, and Korean history is integrated into the first-year of its East Asian history course.
The history of Korean studies at Cambridge goes back to 1947 when Donald Keene, later famous as a Japanese interpreter and scholar of Japanese literature, was appointed as a lecturer in Japanese and Korean in the Faculty of Oriental Languages, as it was then called.
In addition to Korean studies, Cambridge has increased exchanges with the country on various levels. It has a number of existing relationships and collaborations with Korean universities, institutions and corporations across many disciplines. "I can take part in MOUs and protocols, but real partnership comes from the students and scholars," Richard said, stressing her approach to "bottom-up" collaboration.
Cambridge is one of the most global and respected universities in the world, and Richard believes there are three basic reasons that give the institution such distinct status.
"First, we have some of the best minds either teaching or studying in our schools. And we are equipped with a modicum of resources (compared to top U.S. universities). Most importantly, we are an institution that offers a great deal of freedom, whether it is for the autonomy of the institutions or in academic inquiry," Richard said.
"So, very bright people give them enough support and give them a lot of freedom and then let the clock run and then you get Cambridge."
The distinctive features of the school have attracted the best talent from all over the world. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge consists of 31 colleges and more than 100 departments that cater for some 12,000 undergraduate and 6,000 postgraduate students.
"Our first commitment is to nurture the brightest talent in the U.K., but we are also enthusiastic about recruiting foreign talent and increasing support for them," she said.
About 17 percent of undergraduates are foreign nationals. More than 50 percent of students in the graduate programs are foreign. "We look at academic attainment, interview results and basis of potential when selecting our students. I urge Korean students, who are interested in Cambridge, to first focus on language efficiency, work hard and be forthcoming with applications."
Professor Richard was installed as the 344th vice chancellor of the university on Oct. 1, 2003. At Cambridge, professor Richard has launched an ambitious fundraising campaign for £1 billion to underpin and augment core expenditure, introduced new measures for the stewardship of the university's investments, and developed a bursary fund to ensure that undergraduate students and applicants are not disadvantaged by the national introduction of higher university tuition fees.
An anthropologist with a first degree from the University of Cambridge and a doctorate from the University of London, professor Richard joined the faculty of Yale University in the U.S.in 1972. Her academic leadership there culminated in her appointment as Provost of Yale in April 1994.