The UCLA Center
for Korean Studies has received a $1.2 million major grant from the Academy of Korean Studies
based in Seoul, Korea.
The
grant money will be provided over a five-year period to be used for
establishing a network with Korean studies specialists in Latin
America and for strengthening the Korean studies program at UCLA. UCLA
has the largest Korean studies program in North America, with more than 2,500
undergraduates taking courses on Korea
each year and more than 50 graduate students engaged in study and research
related to Korea.
Professor
John Duncan, director of the UCLA
Center for Korean
Studies, expressed his gratitude for the Academy for Korean Studies'
recognition of the excellence of UCLA's program.
"The
grant will be helpful in maintaining the quality of research and instruction on
Korea at UCLA by providing
funds for graduate student fellowships and for hiring a visiting professor of
Korean politics and international relations," Duncan said. "It will be valuable in
strengthening academic ties between the Center for Korean Studies and UCLA's Latin American
Center, which will be collaborating in
establishing the network in Mexico
and South America."
The UCLA project
team on the grant includes Duncan, Kyeyoung Park, associate professor of
anthropology, and Randal Johnson, director of the Latin American Center at the
UCLA International Institute and professor in the department of Spanish and
Portuguese.
The academy said
the funding is part of its program to help support Korean studies at four
prominent international institutions, which also include the University of Washington,
the University of London and the University
of New South Wales in Australia.
UCLA will be the
first to receive Academy
of Korean Studies support
this year. Korean officials said their funding program will be expanded
gradually to include more overseas institutions.
About the center
The UCLA Center
for Korean Studies was established in 1993 to coordinate development of UCLA's
burgeoning programs in this field of research. The center, part of the UCLA
International Institute, now presides over the biggest Korean Studies program
on the mainland of the United States,
with the most specialists dedicated to Korea on its faculty and the
largest number of students studying Korean subjects, at both the undergraduate
and graduate levels.
About UCLA
California's largest university, UCLA
enrolls approximately 38,000 students per year and offers degrees from the UCLA
College of Letters and Science and 11 professional schools in dozens of varied
disciplines. UCLA consistently ranks among the top five universities and
colleges nationwide in total research-and-development spending, receiving more
than $820 million a year in competitively awarded federal and state grants and
contracts. For every $1 state taxpayers invest in UCLA, the university
generates almost $9 in economic activity, resulting in an annual $6 billion
economic impact on the Greater Los Angeles region. The university's health care
network treats 450,000 patients per year. UCLA employs more than 27,000 faculty
and staff, has more than 350,000 living alumni and has been home to five Nobel
Prize recipients.
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