Yonsei University
Yonsei University is a private Christian research university in Seoul, South Korea. Yonsei University is one of the three most prestigious universities in the country, part of a group referred to as SKY universities.
Yonsei University traces its roots to the first modern medical center in Korea, Gwanghyewon founded in April 1885, now Severance Union Medical College. The institution in its current university form was established in January 1957 through the union of Yonhi College and Severance. As a tribute, the name "Yonsei" was derived from the first syllables of the names of its two parent institutions, "Yon; " from Yonhi College and "Sei; " from Severance Union Medical College. Yonhi College was one of the first modern colleges, founded as Chosun Christian College in March 1915. The union was a result of a lasting bilateral cooperation between the colleges that began in the 1920s. The institutions were the first of their kinds in Korea.
The student body consists of 18,200 undergraduate students, 11,632 graduate students, 4,518 faculty members, 6,788 staff, and 257,931 alumni. Yonsei University operates its main campus in Seoul and offers graduate, postgraduate, and doctoral programs in Korean and English.
History
Beginnings (1885–1916)
The Yonsei University Medical School dates to April 10, 1885, when the first modern hospital to practice Western medicine in Korea, Gwanghyewon, was established.The hospital was founded by Horace Newton Allen, the American Protestant missionary appointed to Korea by the Presbyterian Church in the USA. The hospital was renamed Chejungwon on April 26. As there appeared difficulties, the church appointed Canadian Oliver R. Avison to run Chejungwon on July 16, 1893. Gwanghyewon was financed at first by the Korean government, while the medical staff was provided by the church. However, by 1894 when the First Sino-Japanese War and Gabo reforms took place, the government was not able to continue its financial support, thus management of Chejungwon came fully under the church. In 1899, Avison returned to the US and attended a conference of missionaries in New York City where he elaborated on the medical project in Korea. Louis Severance, a businessman and philanthropist from Cleveland, Ohio, was present and was deeply moved. He later paid for the major portion of the construction costs of new buildings for the medical facility. Chejungwon was renamed Severance Hospital after him.
Chejungwon was primarily a hospital, but it also performed medical education as an attachment. The hospital admitted its first class of 16 medical students selected through examinations in 1886, one year after its establishment. By 1899, Chejungwon Medical School was independently recognized. Following the increase of diversity in missionary denominations in Korea, collaboration began to form. Chejungwon began to receive medical staff, school faculty, and financial support from the Union Council of Korean Missionaries in 1912. Accordingly, the medical school was renamed as Severance Union Medical College in 1913.
The rest of Yonsei University traces its origins to Chosun Christian College, which was founded on March 5, 1915, by an American Protestant missionary, Horace Grant Underwood sent by the church. Underwood became the first president, and Avison became the vice president. It was located at the YMCA. Courses began in April with 81 students and 18 faculty members.
Underwood died of illness on October 12, 1916, and Avison took over as president.
During World Wars I and II (1916–1946)
On August 22, 1910, Japan annexed Korea with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910. The first Governor-General of Korea, Terauchi Masatake, introduced the Ordinance on Chosun Education in 1911, and subsequently Regulations on Professional Schools and Revised Regulations on Private Schools in March, 1915. These were intended to stifle private education in Korea; any establishment of schools, any change in school regulations, location, purpose, coursework, or textbooks must all be reported to and authorized by the governor-general, and all courses must be in Japanese.Severance Union College struggled to meet these requirements; school regulations and coursework were altered, faculty evaluated and enlarged, its foundation and its board clarified. It received its recognition as a professional medical school on May 14, 1917. In 1922 the governor-general Makoto Saito issued Revised Ordinance on Chosun Education. It called for stricter qualifications for the faculty, and Severance complied and further recruited more members with degrees from accredited institutions in North America and Europe. Japan did not completely ignore the competence of this institution; in 1923, Severance recovered its right to give medical licenses to its graduates without state examination, a right that had been lost since 1912. Moreover, in March 1934, the Japanese Ministry of Education and Culture further recognized Severance in allowing its graduates the right to practice medicine anywhere in Japanese sovereignty. Oh Geung Seon became the first Korean president of Severance in 1934.
Ordinances in 1915 and 1922 also affected the fate of Chosun Christian College. Intended as a college, it was not legally recognized as such, since the Ordinance of 1915 did not allow the establishment of Korean private colleges. Hence, Chosun Christian College, now renamed Yonhi College, was accepted only as a "professional school" on April 17, 1917, by then a joint project from diverse missionary denominations. However, Yonhi College had formed the organization and faculty becoming a university. It consisted of six departments: humanities, agriculture, commerce, theology, mathematics and physics, and applied chemistry. The ordinances, furthermore, prohibited coursework in Korean history, its geography, or in the Bible outside the department of theology. The council of missionaries reacted with A Resolution on the Revised Educational Ordinance, which carefully pointed out that Japan did not apply such rigorous absurdities to its private schools in mainland Japan.
After the March First Independence Movement swept the peninsula in 1919, Japan somewhat relaxed its grip on Korea, and this is reflected in the Ordinance of 1922. It ceased the arbitrary control of governor-general over the coursework and the qualification of faculty members, and altered its stance on strict separation of religion from all education. It also recognized Yonhi College as a professional school equal to its counterparts in Japan, and permitted the Christian programs and the Bible in its coursework. Nevertheless, Japanese literature became mandatory. Under Japanese intervention, Korean history was taught under the name Eastern History, and the Korean language was taught whenever possible.
The Department of Agriculture was closed after 1922 when its first graduates left Yonhi College. Efforts were made to revive this department, without much success. However, Yonhi College installed a training center for agricultural leaders on campus and its programs saw large numbers of participants.
Yonhi College was liberal in its admission of non-Christians. Its policy was to admit non-Christians relatively freely and allow the majority of Christian students to gradually influence and assimilate them.
Image:Underwood statue.JPG|thumb|right|Statue of Underwood
In the late 1930s, Japan again shifted its policy towards Korea to incorporate it into its scheme of expansionism. In August 1936, the new Japanese Governor-General Jirō Minami began the assimilation of Koreans, to exploit them for military purposes; The governor-general enforced Sōshi-kaimei and Shinto on Koreans, and began to recruit Koreans for Japanese war efforts. In April 1938, the third Ordinance on Chosun Education ordered the acceptance of Shinto, the voluntary removal of the Korean language in coursework, and further intensification of Japanese and Japanese history education. Yonhi Professional School did not follow suit and opened courses on the study of the Korean language in November 1938. This was not tolerated for long: In March 1940, Yonhi College was forced to open courses in Japanese studies for each department and each year. In 1938, English classes began to come under pressure following a deterioration of relations between Japan and the United States; coursework in English was forbidden and texts of English writers were censored. In 1938, President H.H. Underwood accepted the practice of Shinto to avoid the potential closure of Yonhi College. Governors-General pushed Yonhi College to refuse financial support from United States and financial difficulties mounted. American and British trustees and instructors were removed from the school in December 1941 upon the beginning of the Pacific War, and the government took direct control of the school in August 1942.
During the Korean War (1946–1952)
Severance was approved as a college by the liberated Korean government in 1947. Since most medical institutions in Korea were run by the Japanese, medical staff and faculty were in short supply after their departure. Thus, many members of Severance staff and faculty left to assist other institutions. Severance took up the role of student leadership and was outspoken against US-Soviet occupation. In 1950, during the outbreak of the Korean War, Severance functioned as a field hospital until Seoul was overrun. Severance fled quickly, but some faculty members and students were unable to leave in time; some were killed and others were captured then exploited by the advancing North Koreans. Severance seniors joined the military as army surgeons. Although Severance returned to Seoul for a while after its recapture, it had to flee again on December 17, 1950, carrying its medical equipments on a LST: Severance departed from Incheon and arriving in Busan and eventually relocating to Geoje and maintained a presence there until 1952. When Severance arrived in Busan, its medical school joined the wartime college, a temporary body. Meanwhile, the Severance facility in Seoul received heavy damage, as it was in the center of the city near Seoul Station. Severance Hospital again returned on April 1, 1952, and its medical college on June 12, 1952.The US military neglected the restitution of Yonhi College and held other plans to use it as a military hospital or judiciary training center. With time, nevertheless, Yonhi College came to be viewed as a missionary institution that was dispossessed by the governor-general.
Yonhi College was able to open its doors again on January 21, 1946, and, on August 15, 1946, was recognized as a university. In December 1948, plans for the unification of Yonhi College and Severance began to take form. The Graduate School was formed in July 1950.
On May 10, 1950, Yonhi College graduated the first post-colonial class, however in June all progress came to a halt due to the Korean War. The university suspended all courses on June 27 and recruited student soldiers. The North Korean military advanced into the Yonhi College campus and established its headquarters there. This was a cause of severe damage to the campus when the US military recaptured Seoul in September. The university reopened following the recapture of Seoul, but it was once more on the run to Busan in December. In February 1951, Yonhi College joined the wartime college, however, it kept an independent body and opened its own courses on October 3, 1951. On April 15, 1953, Yonhi College began its work on restoration; it returned to its campus in the fall.