Studies in Seoul
SPPA team studies urban policy, management in Seoul, South Korea
8:44 a.m., Nov. 18, 2015--A team from the University of Delaware School of Public Policy and Administration (SPPA) spent a mid-October week in Seoul, South Korea, learning firsthand about the challenges and successes of building and managing that city of 10 million people in the Seoul Case Study Program, managed by the University of Seoul and sponsored by the Seoul Metropolitan Government.
Visiting Seoul were SPPA graduate students Kirsten Jones, a master’s degree student in urban affairs and public policy; Minhee Kim, a doctoral student in urban affairs and public policy; Mallory Smith, a master of public administration 4+1 student; Monica Welch, a master’s degree student in urban affairs and public policy; and Laura Wisniewski, a master of public administration student. They were accompanied by faculty leader Jonathan Justice, professor in SPPA.
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The students will deliver a presentation about what they learned at 5:30 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 3, in 187 Graham Hall.
The UD team spent several weeks in September and October preparing for their week in Seoul by researching Korean history and culture, and studying the policy and management problems facing Seoul and other global mega-cities in the 21st century.
In Seoul, the team spent six days immersed in those topics as part of a larger group that included graduate students and faculty from Cornell University, the University of Birmingham (United Kingdom), Portland State University, the University of Central Florida, and the University of Seoul.
After an initial orientation day on Oct. 18, program participants spent the week attending lectures, visiting city facilities and project sites, and interacting with a variety of academic and city-management experts.
The academic program culminated with analytical presentations prepared and delivered by multi-university teams of students for the benefit of city officials and faculty from the University of Seoul’s International School of Urban Sciences. Those presentations were followed by a farewell ceremony and lunch, and a trip to see Miso, a contemporary musical theatre performance based on traditional Korean themes.
During a final day in Seoul on Oct. 24, the UD team explored a portion of the ancient city walls on Mt. Inwang, learned about the Korean independence struggle of the early 20th century at the Seodaemun Prison History Hall, and observed the sunset ceremony at the Bongeun Buddhist temple in the Gangnam section of Seoul.
While in Seoul, Justice also participated as a discussant in the third Korea-China-Japan International Conference on Urban Management in Northeast Asia, organized by the Korean Urban Management Association and hosted by the University of Seoul.
This marked SPPA's sixth consecutive year of participating in the Seoul Case Study Program. In 2009, Maria Aristigueta, Charles P. Messick Professor of Public Administration and at the time the school’s director, advised the University of Seoul and Seoul Metropolitan Government on plans for the program.
In March 2010, SPPA students and faculty participated in the first iteration of the program. The program, which a number of participants have described as a "life-changing experience" for them, is one of several exceptional graduate study-abroad programs organized by SPPA.
Other ongoing SPPA graduate study-abroad programs include examinations of housing and urban planning policies in the Netherlands, a research partnership with Babes-Bolyai University in Romania and a semester abroad at Beijing Normal University.
Programs in the recent past have also taken teams of SPPA graduate students to study public policy and management in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Costa Rica.
University of Seoul campus photo by Jonathan Justice
Group photo courtesy of the University of Seoul