| Hope for Peace and Prosperity: Pyongyang University of Science & Technology, North Korea’s First International University, Opens Its Doors |
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bridges vol. 25, April 2010 / Feature Article By Caroline Adenberger mp3 download 
After more than a decade of preparation, the first private international university of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) plans to open its doors this May, with 150 undergraduate and 60 graduate students to inaugurate this historic moment. The Pyongyang University of Science & Technology, or PUST, is the brainchild of Korean-American Dr. James Chin Kyung Kim, an entrepreneur turned educator. His vision and dedication led to an educational experiment that is not just about opening campus doors but hopefully about opening minds, too.The PUST project is a poster child for an international higher education collaboration that demonstrates the potential and the power of science-based relationships with countries perceived to be internationally isolated. Kim, who is the founding president of PUST, is clear about the university's mission: to reconcile the North and the South of Korea, and to train and educate a North Korean elite that will be ready to engage with international partners once that time comes. Since the fall of the Eastern Bloc some 20 years ago, options for educational exchanges with North Korean higher education institutions have become limited, to say the least. Kim was able to involve individuals and to engage donors from South Korea, the United States, Canada, the European Union, China, and other countries to work together to build this unique institution of higher education, which will serve as a window opening into the Western world and culture for young North Koreans.
Dr. Kim has some experience to draw on when it comes to such a challenging educational experiment as PUST: Eighteen years ago, in 1992, he founded the Yanbian University of Science and Technology (YUST) in Yanji.  Yanji is the capital city of an autonomous Korean enclave in the Chinese province of Jilin that borders on North Korea (see map on right), with almost half its population of Korean decent. YUST was China's first foreign university, founded at a time when China was still a relatively closed society. Despite the many challenges and constraints that YUST has faced since its inauguration, it has become one of the top 100 universities of China. Within the last 18 years, YUST has grown into a science and technology school with nine colleges, 12 departments, and 35 research institutes that cater to about 1800 undergraduates and about 600 continuing education students. The international faculty of 300 instructors hails from 13 different countries, and the languages of instruction are Chinese, Korean, German and English. In addition to an English Department where students acquire and improve their mastery of the English language, YUST offers its students German language classes in its own German Department. Richard Maislinger, an Austrian language instructor from Ostermiething, a small village north of Salzburg, who has been teaching German at YUST for the last two years, describes his experiences as "sometimes challenging, sometimes amazing, and always an enrichment for my life. Chinese students seem to be more thankful and respectful to their teachers, which makes teaching much easier. On the other hand it requires more effort to make them develop their own ideas."
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