President Lee Bae-yong, at her second year ceremony held on September 2, announced that Ewha will begin a Renaissance Project from 2009 to nurture global leaders who have multi-cultural characteristics and knowledge.

 

             The Renaissance Project is divided into two parts; humanities education and the globalization process. Plans for reinforcing humanities education include revising Ewha’s general education curriculum, granting credits for participating in cultural activities, and providing varities of cultural programs such as the Historical and Cultural Experience with the President program and the Ehwa Literature Lecture Seires by Chaired Professors. The Ewha Wellesley Leadership Program and Ewha Global Initiative (EGI) program are also a part of the humanities component of the project, The globazliation component include the Faculty-Led Study Abroad Program, the exchange student program and the Ewha University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) program.

 

 

Innovations in general education courses

 

 

             Ewha revised its general education curriculum for the spring semester of 2009. General education courses were previously divided into five categories; humanities, social studies, science, foreign language and art/music/physical education. However, starting from the spring semester of 2009, students will select their general education classes within seven new categories; logic and communication, history and culture, understanding the world, understanding society, understanding the humanities, nature and science, and understanding art. This change in curriculum is part of an effort to offer moral education, and provide broader opportunities for students to cultivate a wide variety of knowledge in the humanities. Logic and communication will be added to provide students with more intensive courses in improving writing and speaking skills. History and culture classes will foster history knowledge of Korea. Understanding of the world intends to enable students to keep up with the multi-cultural era and to be prepared for a globalized society.

 

             The new system will apply of the students who enter in 2009. They will be required to take classes in four to five of the seven categories instead of five categories out of five, which was previous requirement.

 

             New courses have been added too. The number of general education courses increased from 192 courses in the spring 2009 semester from 147 courses in spring 2008. Unique classes such as Animals’ Action in nature in the science category and The Psychology of Estimating Danger from the logic and communication category were introduced.

 

             However, late notification of the change caused inconvenience among some students.

 

             “The school should have made an announcement in advance to the changes so that students will not be lost when coordinating the time table or registering for classes,” said Jang Ye-won (Pharmacy, 2).

 

 

Ewha-University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) Student Exchange Program

 

 

             Eight students from the College of Education were sent to the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) to participate in the UMD Student Exchange Program on January 20. The program is organized for education major students.

 

             “The purpose of the program is to allow students to experience the educational environment of the United States and distinguish its differences from Korea’s,” said Professor Woo Ae-ja (Science Education) who led the students.

 

             As a part of the program, Ewha students had an experience of conducting classes of American students in four different schools. It is the first time a Korean university has provided practical training classes for students abroad.

 

 

EGI Program

 

 

             The second Ewha Global Initiative (EGI) program took place from December 16, 2008 to December 28. The program sent 35 students to the United States to experience America’s politics, economy and culture on a road trip along interstate highway 95 in the East coast.

 

             The major landmarks students visited included the U.S. head office of Samsung Electronics, United Nations headquarter in New York, Embassy of the Republic of Korea, the State Department, and several prestigious universities located in the eastern U.S.

 

             “My favorite place was the U.S. State Department, where I met U.S. officials in the Office of Korean Affairs,” said Cheon Ji-hye (German, 2)

 

             According to Lee Yoon-kyu, a director of the Office of Student Affairs, the latest trip was upgraded from the previous once to visit more international organization and government agencies abroad.

 

             The school covers nearly three fourth of the cost for the program while each student is required to pay 1,200,000 won.
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