South Korea professors study at BSU

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

July 13, 1997

By Devlyn Brooks

Staff Writer

For the last four weeks Bemidji State University's industrial technology professors have hosted some atypical summer school students: 20 South Korean junior college faculty here to learn more about the pedagogical skills needed to teach the subjects of computer science and telecommunication.

The professors, most of whom are doctors and represent various South Korean junior colleges, have been studying technology and education for four weeks, and in addition have been able to enjoy several Minnesotan social activities as well. Nearing the end of their six-week adventure, the Koreans have one more week of class in Bemidji, and then they will be off to visit Silicon Valley in California before returning home.

The Information Technology Education Program is a cooperative venture taught by BSU and the Dunwoody Institute, a private technical school in Minneapolis, and facilitated by Aspect Training & Learning Inc. of South Korea, a company hired by the Korean government to increase the educational quality of the country's junior colleges.

Both BSU and Dunwoody began working on the program more than a year ago when they submitted the joint proposal to host the project. Beating out such prestigious schools as Harvard, Columbia and Stanford it, BSU vocational education Professor David Kingsbury said it was the schools' small sizes that intrigued Aspect Inc.

He said the other schools offered much the same training programs BSU did, but BSU threw a bonus into its package -- a set of social events that provided something for the professors to see or do almost every night they are in Minnesota.

"One thing we can do better than the big schools is to out-service them," Kingsbury said in a recent interview. "BSU has 10 staff members dedicated to this program, and we even have one professor specifically in charge of cultural activities. It's a total university effort."

Song Muhsil, Aspect's coordinator who traveled with the group, said BSU's service was an important selling point.

"The social aspect (is) something the teachers have really enjoyed," she said. "The other schools' proposals were all class, and then they were done. We were spending a lot of money for nothing."

In addition to spending the Fourth of July weekend with various Bemidji host families, the professors have visited the Headwaters of the Mississippi River, the Forest History Center near Grand Rapids, Ironworld in Chisholm and the Red Lake Reservation Independence Day weekend powwow.

However, it hasn't been all play for the professors. They have been attending about six hours of class a day for the last four weeks, learning about data communication applications, integrated digital services networks, computer applications for curriculum development and multi-media authoring. Dunwoody also coordinated several visits to high-technology companies such as 3M and Seagate Technology so the professors could see how educational institutions interface with the private sector.

"America is a higher technology country than Korea. Our Korean faculty want to learn more about that experience and teaching," Song said. "BSU did very well in that area."

Although BSU has never sponsored a program of this magnitude, Kingsbury said with how pleased the Koreans have been and how much it has benefited BSU faculty to work with foreign professors, the Information Technology Education Program could develop into something permanent.

"Because this fits with the university mission to be responsive, technology-oriented and international, and serving clients on an international basis makes us better at serving our focus clientele," he said. "Any time we work with another university, we learn. We're a lot smarter now than we were four weeks ago."