Internationalization of the Campus

Korean higher education institutions are facing serious challenges from inside and outside Korea. Some of them have difficulties filling government- set freshman quotas every year, and the opening of the Korean education market is due soon. It is now imperative to internationalize their campuses for future survival. The main question for this research was to find out how the leading Korean private universities internationalize their campuses. Yonsei University and Korea University were selected as sample universities for this research because of their excellent reputation for internationalization. A survey with open-ended questions was distributed and interviews were conducted to find out their current status of internationalization. Internationalization at these institutions was found to be overly program-focused and to lack proper organizational strategies such as organizational structures, strategic plans, and leadership. The results of this research can be utilized by other Korean institutions for their future campus internationalization.

Insoo Cho is a senior administrator at Yonsei University, Korea; and a founding member of both the Korean Association of International Educators and the Asia Pacific Professional Leaders in Education. Cho earned an MBA from Yonsei and an MA in International Education from the SIT Graduate Institution, USA.