Ewha Womans University (Hangul: ???????; Hanja: ???????) is a private women's university in Seoul, South Korea founded in 1886 by the American Methodist Episcopal Church. It is currently the world's largest female educational institute and is one of the most prestigious universities in South Korea.
While the lack of an apostrophe in "Womans University" is unconventional, the use of "Woman's" rather than "Women's" was normal in the past.
?he use of "Womans" carries special meaning. The early founders of the college thought that every woman is to be respected; to promote this idea, they chose the word "woman" to avoid lumping students together under the word "women."
Video Ewha Womans University
History
Ewha Womans University traces its roots back to Mary F. Scranton's Ewha Haktang (Hangul: ????; Hanja: ????) mission school for girls, which opened with one student on May 31, 1886 (Lee, 2001). The name Ewha, which means "Pear Blossoms", was bestowed by the Emperor Gojong the following year. The campus was covered with them, and historians speculate that a grove of pear trees near Scranton home's inspired the name. The image of the pear blossom is incorporated in the school's logo.
The school began providing college courses in 1910, and professional courses for women in 1925. The high school section, now known as Ewha Girls' High School (not to be confused with the coeducational Ewha Womans University High School, the university's demonstration school, founded in 1958), separated from the college section and is currently located in Jung-gu, Seoul. Both institutions share the same motto and the "pear blossoms" image in their logos.
Immediately following liberation of Korea on August 15, 1945, the college received government permission to become a university. It was the first South Korean university to be officially organized.
Timeline
- 1886-1910
- 1886: First modern educational institute for Korean women, American missionary Mary F. Scranton began classes for women at her home in Jeong-dong, Seoul.
- 1887: Boguyeogwan offers medical service for women. As Korea's first hospital exclusively for women, it laid the groundwork for Ewha's Colleges of Nursing and Medicine, which became the current Ewha Womans University Medical Center.
- 1910-1925
- 1910: College courses launched in September The college opened at Ewha Haktang with 15 students; its inaugural class graduated in 1914.
- 1925: Founding of Ewha College. The college was elevated to Ewha College, making it the first institute of higher education for Korean women.
- 1925-1945
- 1935: Campus moves to Sinchon.
- 1946-1961
- 1946: First Korean university to receive government accreditation. Ewha was accredited by the Ministry of Education, becoming the first accredited four-year university in Korea.
- 1951: Temporary wartime campus in Busan. Following the outbreak of the Korean War, Ewha opened an evacuee campus in the southern city of Busan on Sept. 1, 1951, with 30 temporary wooden structures and tents.
- 1961-2000
- 1977: Korea's first women's studies course and established the Korean Women's Institute to seek development in the discipline.
- 1986: Ewha's 100th anniversary of its foundation.
- 1995: Top marks in national accreditation, named top-ranked school in Comprehensive University Accreditation System conducted by Korean Council for University Education.
- 1996: Established the world's first engineering college for women.
- 2000-2010
- 2001: Korea's first International Studies Division opened, offering all courses in English.
- 2006: Ewha Global Partnership program
- Korea's first degree program for women from developing countries was established.
- 2007: Ewha-KOICA program started, an MA program for female researchers and public servants from developing countries.
- 2007: Scranton College self-designed major (undergraduate program) started.
- 2008: Construction of ECC, Korea's largest environmentally friendly underground campus facility.
- 2010-present
- 2011: Established an Ewha-Solvay collaboration with multinational chemical corporation Solvay, to build the global headquarters of its R&D center at Ewha.
- 2012: Center of women's global education by launching the Ewha Global Empowerment Program to foster female leaders in public and non-government sectors in developing countries.
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- Selected to receive KRW 100 billion over the next 10 years from the Institute for Basic Research.
- 2016: Center of women's global education by launching the Ewha Global Empowerment Program to foster female leaders in public and non-government sectors in developing countries.
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- Selected to receive KRW 100 billion over the next 10 years from the Institute for Basic Research.
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Maps Ewha Womans University
Collaborations
The university collaborates with around 830 partners in 64 countries including Australian National University, Cornell University, Freie University of Berlin, Ghent University, Harvard University, Indiana University, King's College London, Nanyang Technological University, Peking University, University of California, Irvine, University of British Columbia, University of Edinburgh, University of Hong Kong, University of South Carolina, Uppsala University, and Waseda University.
Organization
Colleges
Graduate schools
Controversies and criticisms
Helen Kim, the seventh principal and first Korean principal of Ewha, is considered to be pro-Japanese. She is known to have encouraged young men to enlist in the Japanese army. The statue of Helen Kim and the building named after her on campus has been criticized. Students have protested many times to take down the statue. While Ewha Womans University has been the center of women's rights movements that had positive impacts on Korean society, this feminist feature created controversies in Korea, where misogyny is deep-seated. One example of controversies was men's benefit from military service. Originally, getting extra points on employment and being paid for higher step in the salary class were available to males who had done their mandatory military service. Yet, in 1999, Ewha Womans University students and one male student, who was a disabled student of Yonsei University, protested that this is a sexism problem and discrimination toward disabled people. This case eventually went to court, and the court ruled that this was, indeed, sexism and discrimination toward the disabled. Ewha Womans University was at the center of the 2016 South Korean political scandal, where its former student, Chung Yoo-ra, was enrolled through bribery. The students had been protesting against university's unilateral change in degree system and departments before the political scandal has been discovered. Later, the protest included the illegal enrollment of Chung Yoo-ra. As a result, Ewha Womans University's president, Choi Kyunghee, has been arrested and resigned.
Achievements
- Among the women lawmakers appointed to the 19th National Assembly (2012-2016), 27.6% are Ewha alumnae.
- The only Korean university participating as a partner in the Harvard College in Asia Program (HCAP) and Ewha-Harvard Summer School Program.
- Produced the 6th highest number of successful candidates in National Judicial Exam and the 7th highest number in Civil Service Exam in 2013(ranked 5th in 2012).
- First among all private Korean universities in the number of citations per research paper in the 2012 Chosun-QS Evaluation of Asian Universities.
Awards
- 321st in the 2013 Leiden Ranking, a qualitative assessment of faculty research in the world's top 500 universities.
- 299th in the QS World University Rankings in 2018.
- Ninth among all Korean universities in the Chosun-QS Evaluation of Asian Universities in 2016.
Distinguished Honorary Ewha Fellows
- Hillary Clinton -- Former United States Secretary of State.
- Drew Gilpin Faust -- President of Harvard University.
- Tarja Halonen -- The 11th President of Finland.
Distinguished Fellows of the Ewha Academy for Advanced Studies
- Muhammad Yunus -- President of Grameen Bank and the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize recipient.
- George Smoot -- Recipient of Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006.
- Robert Howard Grubbs -- American chemist and a Nobel laureate.
- Jane Goodall -- British anthropologist.
- Jocelyn Bell Burnell -- Professor of Astrophysics at Oxford University.
Notable alumnae
Politics and government
- Chun Shin-ae -- former Director of the Women's Bureau of United States Department of Labor.
- Han Myeong-sook -- former Prime Minister of South Korea.
- Jeon Hyo-sook -- first female justice in the Constitutional Court of Korea.
- Jeon Yeo-ok -- South Korean politician.
- Kim Yoon-ok -- former First Lady, the wife of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
- Lee Soon-ja -- former First Lady, the wife of South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan.
- Lee Tai-Young -- first Korean female lawyer and first female judge.
- Son Myung-soon -- former First Lady, the wife of South Korean President Kim Young-sam.
Business
- Choi In-a -- first Korean female Vice President in Samsung Group.
- Hyun Jeong-eun -- Chairwoman of the Hyundai Group.
- Lee Myung-hee -- Chairwoman of the Shinsegae Group.
- Lee Sung-nam -- former executive of the Financial Supervisory Service.
- Lee Yoon-hyung -- Samsung Group chief Lee Kun-hee's daughter.
- Sohn Byoung-ok -- first woman CEO of Prudential Life Korea.
Science
- Chang Hai-won -- first Korean women scientist in the field of Chemistry.
- Insoo Kim Berg -- Korean-born American psychotherapist.
- Esther Park -- first Korean female doctor.
Sports
- Hong Eun-ah -- youngest Korean FIFA referee.
- Kwak Min-jeong -- South Korean figure skater.
Journalism
- Jang Myung-sue -- first woman CEO of a daily newspaper Hankook Ilbo.
- Kim Joo-ha -- first Korean woman journalist to host news as a solo anchor at MBC.
- Sohn Ji-ae -- former Bureau Chief of CNN Seoul.
Entertainment
- Claudia Kim -- actress
- Kim Hye-ja -- actress
- Kim Seo-yeon -- Miss Korea 2014
- Kim Yeo-jin -- actress
- Kwak Hyun-hwa -- actress
- Lee Yu-bi -- actress
- Park Hae-mi -- musical actress
- Seo Min-jung -- actress
- Yang Jin-sung -- actress
Others
- Sanghee Song -- artist
- Hah Ran-sa -- first Korean woman to acquire a Bachelor's degree at Ohio Wesleyan University in the United States.
- Helen Kim -- first female Korean Doctor of Philosophy, and also the first Korean female Bachelor of Arts.
- JaHyun Kim Haboush - scholar of history, literature, gender studies, and King Sejong Professor of Korean Studies at Columbia University.
- Lee Ae-ran -- first female North Korean defector to earn a doctorate, which she earned from Ewha Womans University in the subject of food and nutrition in 2009.
- No Seok-mi -- first Korean female Certified Public Accountant.
- Sylvia Park MBE -- first Korean female to be awarded a British royal honour.
- Yu Jung-geun -- first Korean female president of Red Cross.
Affiliated facilities
- Ewha Womans University Museum
- Ewha Womans University Natural History Museum
- Ewha Womans University Medical Center
- Ewha Institute For Leadership Development
- Ewha Advanced IT Education Center
- Ewha School Of Continuing Education
- Ewha Language Center
- Ewha Archives
- Ewha Elementary School
- Ewha Kindergarten
- Ewha Kumnan High School
- Ewha Kumnan Middle School
- Youngran Information Industry High School
- Youngran Girl's Middle School
Gallery
Public transportation
- Ewha Womans University Station
- Gyeongui-Jungang Sinchon Station (Gyeongui Line)
See also
- Education in South Korea
- List of colleges and universities in South Korea
- List of Korea-related topics
- Ewha Womans University Station
- Idae area
References
External links
- EWHA by ArchiDiAP
- Official website, in Korean and English
- Official website for international programs, in Korean and English
- Ewha Womans University at Curlie (based on DMOZ)
- Ewha Womans University Museum at Google Cultural Institute
Source of article : Wikipedia
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