KS's Global Insights into Higher Education

In the sweltering summer of 2018, a disturbing incident unfolded during the monthly leadership meeting at Songdo International City's Incheon Global Campus, attended by representatives from four international universities. An African American employee present recounted a disheartening experience from that morning: as he left his on-campus apartment, he was subjected to a racial slur beginning with 'N' by a Korean student, who was apparently visiting from a nearby high school. This incident, which ignited anger in the employee, was formally addressed during the meeting. The question, "What should one learn in secondary education before advancing to higher education?" is inherently multifaceted. At the macro level, it involves a country's educational philosophy, ideology, and values, reflecting the ethos of a given era. At the meso level, it pertains to how regional education offices and individual schools administer and endorse their educational programs. At th...

 "Dad, Columbus discovered the New World!" A few days ago, my first-grade daughter jubilantly announced this after reading a biography, leaving me at a loss. Was Columbus truly a great man? Is the history he crafted something to discuss with such exuberance? The notion that 'Columbus's discovery of the New World' emanates from a predominantly Western-centric mindset is no longer a novel perspective. The "New World" they claimed to have discovered was actually an Old World, already inhabited. The so-called Indians were simply indigenous peoples living according to their own customs. Not content with claiming an already inhabited land as 'new', they killed or displaced the natives — a more grievous injustice is hard to imagine from the natives' perspective. In November 2022, the Association for the Study of Higher Education held its conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. In the conference hall, where I had come with my professor to present a paper, I...

  The recent discussions surrounding diversity in the United States, a country with a strong foothold in higher education globally, are particularly intriguing to me, a doctoral student majoring in higher education administration and an individual who has been working in the field of higher education internationalization for about 13 years. For the first time in the history of Harvard University, a black individual was elected president at the end of last year. It was in 2023, about 14 years after the emergence of the first black president of the United States, a world-leading power, that a black president was inaugurated at what is often referred to as the world's best university. Shortly after this news was announced, Purdue University, one of America's prestigious institutions, announced in early January 2023 that the university had its first Asian-American president in its history. Interestingly, this appointment drew further attention as it occurred soon after the chancell...