Program to Bring Korean Students to ASU
November 22, 2011
ASU President Joseph C. Rallo and Sejong President Woo-Hee Park signed the agreement in Seoul earlier this month for the program that will begin in the spring of 2012. Under the agreement, Sejong students will stay on the Seoul campus for a year of courses taught in English by Sejong faculty, who will serve as ASU adjunct faculty. After successfully completing their first year at Sejong, the students will transfer to ASU for the final three years of undergraduate work.
Both universities expect approximately 100 new students a year to enroll in the 1+3 program. While taking ASU courses on the Sejong University campus, students will pay Sejong tuition rates. Once the students transfer to Angelo State, they will pay out-of-state tuition rates unless they qualify for competitive scholarship packages.
“We are delighted to initiate this program with Sejong University,” Rallo said. “Our agreement builds upon many longstanding ties between our nation and the Republic of Korea. The new program will further enhance ASU’s International Studies Program by providing an ongoing cohort of Korean students that ultimately will number 300 or more per year when the program is fully implemented.
“Not only will our Korean guests get an exceptional ASU education,” Rallo said, “but our students will benefit from their interactions with these students, who come from a nation that has been one of our staunchest allies in Asia and today is the United States’ seventh-largest trading partner.”
Rallo said Dr. Won-Jae Lee, a native of South Korea and an ASU associate professor of criminal justice, and Dr. Sharynn Tomlin, the director of ASU’s Center for International Studies, played key roles in developing and finalizing the 1+3 program.
Rallo, Lee and Tomlin headed the ASU delegation that signed the agreement in Seoul. As part of their trip, they also visited seven other partner institutions in Seoul, Daegu and Ulsan to strengthen opportunities for ASU students to study abroad in South Korea.
Sejong University is a private university founded in 1940 and currently enrolling some 13,000 students. The university has nine colleges and nine graduate schools with academic strengths in international business, hotel management and animation.
Under the 1+3 program, Korean students will spend their first year on the Sejong campus taking eight core classes required by ASU and working on their English proficiency. Once they have completed those courses and successfully passed the Test of English as a Foreign Language or TOEFL, they will be enrolled at Angelo State as of spring 2013.