Professor Continues to Advocate for Korean Studies Program

From Korea Times: “Professor Kim Yung-hee was an academic warrior who helped the Korean arts and literature department of Ohio State University in Columbus survive academic restructuring in the early 1990s…Nearly two decades later, Kim, currently director of the Center for Korean Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, is wrestling with a fresh challenge…The class size of Korean studies there is shrinking…Students’ lack of interest in Korean studies came as a bit of a surprise, considering the number of undergraduate students taking Korean language courses at the University of Hawaii has continued to increase. Approximately, 300 to 400 students attend the course every semester.” I remember the first time I heard there was an Asian American Studies major available in some schools, and my first thought was, “What are people going to do with that degree?” Of course, the same was often asked of me as an English and Religion major.