Douglass students find learning partners at Korea’s largest women’s school
Archived article from Oct 20, 2003
By Patricia Lamiell
A dozen students from Ewha Womans University in South Korea met face-to-face earlier this month with their Douglass College counterparts at Voorhees Chapel.
“What if someone just fell into a leadership position?” asked Hyowon Yun, one of the visiting students.” I don’t really think it’s possible,” responded Douglass senior Alexandra Michailescu. “You don’t just stumble into being a CEO.”
The Korean students, ages 18 to 21, visited Douglass College from Sept. 28 to Oct. 4 as part of a Web-based seminar, “The Psychology of Women’s Leadership in a Global Perspective,” a cross-cultural exploration into how a woman becomes a leader.
This year was the second offering of the semesterlong, teleconferencing seminar, launched last year by Douglass, the women’s college at Rutgers, and Ewha, the largest women’s university in the world. It is the first global, interactive course to be proposed at Rutgers and among the first to be offered, according to Suzan Armstrong-West, professor of psychology and associate dean for academic programs at Douglass.
The course is taught by Armstrong-West, Deirdre Kramer, associate professor of psychology at Douglass; and Ewha Professors Kang Hye-Ryun and Pilwha Chang. It is open to Douglass undergraduates in their sophomore, junior and senior years.
Cross-cultural exchange helps students better understand that women leaders develop differently in different parts of the world. On Oct. 2, in a seminar room in Voorhees Chapel, the students developed a common script to interview well-known women in the arts, government, education, business, media and nonprofit worlds in their respective countries.
Once each group has completed a dozen interviews, they will analyze the factors in each culture that facilitate or discourage women’s development as leaders. Working from nearly identical syllabi, students at both colleges post summaries of class discussions on a secure, interactive Web site and engage in online chat and teleconferences. They meet in person for a week — last year in Seoul, this year at Douglass. The Ewha students came to New Brunswick, taking side trips to New York City and Washington D.C. between class discussions.
“At Douglass, we focus on women, and women’s education and development. Douglass is where women learn to lead,” said Armstrong-West, quoting the college’s motto. “But we recognize that beyond Douglass, we live in a global community. We can’t do things in a vacuum; we have to look at things in a global perspective.”
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