Fulbright U.S. Education Center

Fulbright Korea’s U.S. Education Center (link to Korean home page)  ( Link to English home page)  is part of a global network of more than 400 “EducationUSA”  advising centers supported by the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.  Our activities in Korea place us at the cutting edge of the information revolution as it re-shapes academic advising.  Consider the following.

• South Korea has the most advanced and extensive digital networks in the world, both fixed (fiber optic) and mobile.  Such innovations as broadband internet, social networking and 3G mobile communication arrived in Korea years before they came to the U.S. , Europe and other parts of the world.
• Korea continues to send far more students to the U.S. on a per capita basis than any country in the world, and continues to rank near the top in absolute numbers.

All organizations in Korea are adapting to this rapidly changing media environment.  For example, the U.S. Embassy has launched a very popular internet cafe (Cafe USA) on Daum, one of Korea’s leading portals.  The current ambassador to Korea, Kathleen Stephens, a former Peace Corps volunteer here, authors a very popular blog which is published simultaneously in both Korean and English.  The Embassy public affairs office operates an information center blog and posts information to the web about the Embassy’s American Corners.

In relation to all of these efforts, the Fulbright Commission’s U.S. Education Center plays a unique role.  Fulbright Korea became involved with “student counseling” back in the 1960s, and its efforts expanded in parallel with the growing numbers of Korean students going to the U.S. for study abroad.  The purchase of the Fulbright Building, which was dedicated in January of 2000, augmented our ability to provide web-based advising and information services in the Korean language, to prospective Korean students and their parents, and in English, to U.S. colleges, universities and other educational organizations seeking to recruit Korean students.

• We encourage U.S. colleges, universities, and other educational organizations to “Partner with Fulbright Korea in Cyberspace,” by using our services to enhance their exchange activities with Korea.  As a binational commission, we have unequaled credibility in the Korean education sector.
• We offer high quality localization services to translate materials into Korean and adapt them to Korean user preferences.
• We maintain a technical support staff, alongside our educational advisers to support a growing array of web services.  We operate from the Fulbright Building in Mapo, which is owned by the Korean American Educational Commission.  This blog exists to support activities of the U.S. Education Center.  Jim Larson maintains a related blog on Korea’s Information Society which frequently touches on education issues.

In April of this year we are pleased to be hosting  a U.S. State-Department sponsored workshop on “Social, Mobile and Visual Media” with the theme of “Advising in the Digital Age.”  Fifteen advisors from other EducationUSA centers around the Asia region will join staff from the U.S. State Department and our Fulbright web team  in Seoul to explore cutting-edge issues that are transforming the nature of advising in the digital age.   More on this topic in later posts.

As some of you who follow this blog already know, I author another blog called koreainformationsociety.com.   Quite frequently there are posts on that blog that I think might be of interest to people reading this one.  After all, education is one of the major pillars, arguably the most important one, in building an information society.  Education is at the heart of South Korea’s progress over the past three decades in building an information society.

Also, I realize that many university administrators and others in the U.S. education sector are interested in Korea’s rapidly evolving digital media environment.  This nation’s goal of becoming the world’s first ubiquitous society has definite implications for U.S. schools who currently and in the future will recruit Korean students.  The new category, Korea’s Information Society, should help to bolster the existing one on “Recruiting Korean Students.”

Comments and suggestions on this new category are welcome.

I’m here at the NAFSA: Association of International Educators conference in Los Angeles.   There is a great deal of interest in educational exchange between the United States and Korea.  Two topics that are receiving considerable attention in panels and presentations this year are (1) the internet and cyber-promotion and delivery of education and (2) the growing number of state and regional consortia being formed to help promote education in the U.S.   Just yesterday I learned that a “Study Rhode Island” consortia has been formed consisting of eight RI universities and colleges.   This morning (Thursday) I’m going to attend a session that discusses the role of government in consortia, such as the new Study New York group that is being formed.   More on this in later posts.

A note to the many people I’ve met at NAFSA:  please return to this blog for information on South Korea’s education sector and feel free to submit your comments, advice and questions.

An interesting article in the New York Times, “College and Company Link up to Lure Foreigners,” describes Northeastern University’s new partnership with Kaplan to recruit international students.  Kaplan finds students for and helps run an academic program for international students to spend a year on campus, improving their English and acclimating to American higher education, before starting one of Northeastern’s degree programs.  Although Northeastern is the first American university with such a partnership, the model, now common in Britain, is gaining interest in the United States. Some critics worry that if such partnerships catch on widely, the quest for lucrative international students could undermine academic standards, if the profit motive leads programs to admit unqualified students or use low-paid, poorly trained instructors.

Nearly 70 high school administrators, teachers and counselors from seven different nations attended the first AP Summer Institute in Asia, co-sponsored by Fulbright and the College Board.  To see the Institute brochure, use the following link.

AP Institute in Asia Brochure

The powerpoint presentation given by Dr. James Larson of Fulbright on the morning of Tuesday July 29th may be downloaded here. (double click on the link below to view the document or right-click and save to download it to your computer).

ap-institute-july-2008-final

Over the past decade or more, I have had countless conversations with U.S. university, college or boarding school administrators responsible for student enrollment and recruitment.   Yesterday, for example, Dr. Stephen Allen, Executive Director of Enrollment Management at Southern Utah University, visited our offices and we had a valuable conversation about his university and their use of our promotional services.  In every one of these conversations with representatives of U.S. schools, the topic of localization arises.  This leads me to propound “Larson’s Law on Localization,” as follows. 

Larson’s Law on Localization:  To effectively promote a school or other educational products and services in Korea, all key promotional information should be translated into Korean and adapted to local media patterns.

This basic law or principle of consumer behavior and the Korean education market may seem obvious to you, but it is not universally understood or accepted.    We regularly hear the argument that “Korean students are planning to study in the U.S.  Therefore, they need to have a command of English in order to apply to and consider our school, or attend a study fair.”  This argument ignores the fact that Koreans normally think, listen, speak and write in their native language.  It also ignores the crucial reality that a student’s parents, who frequently will foot the bill for education in the U.S., are also interested in the information.  They may or may not have a strong command of English.

This is only an initial post on this issue, but I think it deserves the status of a “law,” akin to the well-known Moore’s law, stated many years ago by the founder of Intel.  After all, Korea has a culture that is thousands of years old, strong respect for education and an alphabet that ranks as its top cultural asset.  It stands to reason that Koreans will expect some important points to be delivered, through whatever medium, in their own language.  In marketing communications terms, this country probably represents the ideal case of a nation where “localization” rather than “globalization” of the promotional message is required. 

Fulbright Korea, as an established bi-national organization here in South Korea, has unique credibility and also excellent resources to assist U.S.-based schools, colleges, universities and other educational organizations.  Localization is one of our core competencies.  I encourage your questions and reactions, and we will be happy to answer any questions you might have.