Gift from Korea Foundation to fund professorship

UB has received a $2 million gift from the Korea Foundation in South Korea to establish a Korean studies professorship in the social sciences. The gift creates an endowment that will fund a senior (tenured) professor in Korean studies to be appointed by the College of Arts and Sciences starting in the 2025-26 academic year. 

“We are most grateful to the Korea Foundation for this generous and impactful gift that will strengthen our faculty resources in Korean and Asian studies,” says A. Scott Weber, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. “In keeping with the growing importance of Korea on the world stage, Korean language and culture are of increasing interest to our students. The new Korea Foundation professor will add considerable depth to UB’s research and teaching about Korea.”

The professorship will be named the Korea Foundation Professorship of Korean Studies. In consultation with the Office of International Education, CAS will recruit and hire a senior faculty member whose research and teaching is based in the social sciences, with a primary focus in Korean studies, working with Korean language sources and potentially publishing in Korean. The new hire will assume a major role in developing new curricula and courses across multiple disciplines to strengthen Korean studies at UB.

The Korea Foundation gift also establishes a Korea Studies Program Fund for academic and educational programming in Korean studies at UB, with matching support anticipated from New York State through the University Centers Endowment Fund.

Nojin Kwak, vice provost for international education who worked with the Korea Foundation on the gift, notes that the gift builds upon recent initiatives to bolster Korean studies. “The launch in 2023 of our Asia Research Institute (ARI) has brought renewed focus to Korean studies,” Kwak explains, “making possible, among other programs, our annual Korean studies symposium, the third of which is scheduled for Oct. 18-19, 2024, and titled, ‘(Un)Defining Korean Architecture: Modernity, Stories and Transformation.’”

The fall symposium is jointly organized and co-sponsored by ARI and the School of Architecture and Planning. Previous symposia have focused on Korean drama and film, as well as the global cultural phenomenon of K-pop.

“I am pleased to say that UB is currently conducting a search for a tenure-track faculty position in Korean culture in the Department of Media Study, to start in fall 2024,” says Robin Schulze, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “This is an important hire in light of the growing influence of Korean popular culture and media around the world.”

Kwak notes that UB has already benefited from grants totaling $240,000 from the Academy of Korean Studies, a unit of South Korea’s Ministry of Education. This funding has provided support for research projects, pedagogical innovations, a postdoctoral fellowship and cultural programming in Korean studies at UB. UB’s partnership with Gyeonggi Province in South Korea facilitated the launch of the SUNY Global Learning Institute in summer 2023.

“With this significant gift from the Korea Foundation and other new initiatives in Korean studies,” Kwak adds, “I am excited to say that UB is well positioned to become an emerging leader in research and education in Korean studies.”