Handong Global University showcases future of AI education

Handong Global University campus in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province / Courtesy of Handong Global University

Handong Global University hosted a showcase of artificial intelligence (AI)-based education initiatives earlier this month, drawing more than 100 university faculty, staff and administrators from across the country to the Kim Young-gil Grace School Chapel on campus.

The event, organized by the university's AI Innovation Center under its broader Glocal University project, featured five sessions covering AI-integrated curriculum design, competency-based education models, AI courseware applications, personalized learning support systems and security protocols for generative AI tools in academic settings.

Two international experts delivered keynote presentations.

Dale Johnson, director of digital innovation for the University Design Institute at Arizona State University, outlined structural shifts in the learning environment in the AI era, drawing on nine months of joint development with Handong on the High Touch High Tech education model.

Philippa Kim, director of partner programs for Asia at the Minerva Project — an educational organization that licenses its rigorous, seminar-style curriculum and data-driven learning methodology to global institutions — presented a competency-based framework built around four core skills: critical thinking, creative thinking, communication and collaboration.

The partnerships have yielded concrete results. Handong and Arizona State have co-developed more than 60 courses based on their joint learning model, while a Minerva-aligned AI course — described as the first AI course in the Minerva partnership network — is now running across six general education subjects. The course was designed to build critical thinking through a comparative analysis of AI tools rather than rote instruction in their use. Student satisfaction reportedly rose 20 percent following its introduction.

Additional sessions addressed an AI academic advising system linked to student registration and graduation records, a Socratic-method AI tutoring platform called LEIA and findings from a security audit of Handong's AI chatbot, which identified vulnerabilities in standard guardrails and highlighted the need for Korean-language-specific protections against character-manipulation exploits.

A Handong Global University official noted that the critical question facing higher education is not which tasks AI assumes, but what new responsibilities that shift creates for faculty and staff. Handong has opened an AI Open Innovation Center in partnership with the city of Pohang and is pursuing a broader transition toward becoming an AI-native university, with plans to extend its education model to primary and secondary schools as well as regional industries.