By Kim Eun-jung
The Korean alumni association of Princeton University in New Jersey said Tuesday that it has launched a campaign to raise funds to set up a monument for the late president Syngman Rhee on the campus of his alma mater.
The club is scheduled to send guides on collection of funds and deposit forms to its some 50 alumni, following the opening of its formal campaign website (www.rheesyngmanfund.org) accepting donations.
A spokesman said that the campaign will continue through the end of next year to raise more than 1 billion won.
The club is ready to select what kinds of monuments, such as a scholarship fund, a seminar hall, bronze statue of Rhee or chair-professorship at the school, depending on the amount to be collected.
The alumni club explained about the motive for the fundraising to former prime minister Chung Un-chan and Kim Byung-joo, economics professor emeritus of Sogang University, at the year-end party it hosted at the Seoul Club in Jung-gu, central Seoul, Nov. 23.
“It is needed to commemorate the feat and significance of Rhee as both the first alumni of the school and the first president of the Republic of Korea in disregard of ideology although he has been assessed differently by groups of the society,” said Kim Jong-suk, head of the club, and economics professor at Hongik University.
The club said that it will also receive funds from outsiders.
The late Rhee won his doctorate on political science at Princeton University in 1910, after obtaining his bachelor’s degree at the George Washington University and his master’s degree at Harvard University. He went to the United States in 1904.
