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| Neil D. Theobald, center in the front row, president of Temple University, poses with participants in an alumni event at the Hotel President in Seoul, Friday. Sitting to Theobald's left is Korea Alumni Chapter Board Chair Park Hee-bong, a public administration professor at Chung-Ang University. / Courtesy of Temple University |
Temple University to expand partnership with local schools
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| Neil D. Theobald, president of Temple University |
By Chung Hyun-chae
Neil D. Theobald, president of Temple University in Philadelphia, Penn., the U.S., has pledged to expand cooperation and exchanges with Korean universities.
"One of my emphases as president of Temple is to attract more Korean students to come to the United States and to get more of our students to study abroad, particularly in Korea," he told The Korea Times at the Westin Chosun Seoul, last Friday.
Temple University has 28,000 undergraduate and 9,000 graduate students. The number of international students is 2,200 from 110 countries. Nine percent, or 200, of them are from Korea.
Korea is one of the top countries of origin along with China, India and Kuwait.
"The number of Temple students coming to Korea is actually flat at this point and one of our goals is to get that to rise but the number of Korean students to Temple both for study abroad and degrees is increasing," Theobald said. "Three years ago we had only 1,300 international students and we have now 2,200, a 70 percent increase, which suggests that students who had a good experience recommended their friends to do same thing."
He visited Korea from June 9 to 13. He attended an alumni event at the Hotel President in Seoul, Friday. About 100 alumni came to the gathering. He also had discussions with presidents of local universities on academic cooperation.
He signed a partnership with Kookmin University on June 10.
"With Kookmin, we established a dual bachelor's master's degree program in which students do three-and-a-half years of study for a bachelor's degree at their home university and then come to Temple for two years to earn a graduate degree," Theobald said.
Temple is also in active discussion with other prominent Korean universities.
Temple also has partnership ties with Ewha Womans, Hanyang, Sejong and Yonsei universities, and Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.
"Among all, our most active partner is Ewha Womans University whose President Choi Kyung-hee is also an alumna," Theobald said. "Temple has been home to more than 20 students from Ewha and we will also send more of our students to Ewha so that we can make the exchange more balanced."
Aside from student exchange programs, Temple also exchange faculty members with other partner universities. They work on research projects that are of interest to both universities.
Temple University has recently fared well in academic rankings in that its five schools _ business, law, medicine, art and music _ are in the top 50 in America. As for the Fox School of Business at Temple University, "Risk management and insurance" ranked fifth in the country, according to U.S. News and World Report 2014.
"That is a huge growth area for corporations right now as they are trying to understand the risks in international business," Theobald said. "Korean universities are also focusing on this area so that Korean students can come to the U.S. and receive competitive training."
Aside from this major, management information systems, actuarial science, psychology, communications and music are among the top five majors among Korean students who go to Temple, the president said.
