Law School Blog
A Tuesday Farewell
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Tuesday means preparation for the next leg of this Asian trip—to Taipei, Taiwan. However, before boarding a plane on Wednesday morning, we had another event-filled day. We began by visiting the Sunkyungkwan University Law School (SKKU), another premier institution in this country. It is a private institution located at one of the centers of Confucian learning in Korea. The campus grounds have been utilized as an educational institution for more than 600 years!
There are many similarities between UWLS and SKKU. Both schools have new physical facilities built just three years ago. Like us, our friends at Sunkyungkwan have magnificent technology to accompany their new building—their classrooms look and function as ours do with cameras, smart podium, and internet access. I was honored to be invited to present to a group of faculty members and students on legal challenges confronting American law schools. Some of my topics could easily be predicted: curriculum, scholarship, clinical education, transnational collaboration, and, of course, finances.
Korean university education appears to be better subsidized by the government than we are by our state government—perhaps a benefit of a nationalized approach. Student tuition also represents a smaller percentage of total costs to families than our tuition does.
As I noted yesterday, Korea hopes to move to a graduate-style model for legal education within three years. During my remarks about some of our curricular innovations (the Entrepreneurial Law and Business Clinic, Contorts, and interdisciplinary team-teaching), our faculty friends asked for my thoughts on how they might integrate common law teaching without losing their emphasis on historical legal development, statutory, and administrative analysis. That proved to be a tough question because they have nearly a millennium of history and law to cover. I expressed my belief that we may not emphasize those topics as much as we need to do in the U.S. Our common law focus on common law development may create an over-emphasis on case law. As most students will discover when they begin their legal careers, we spend far more time with administrative and statutory matters than with court cases.
Curricular innovation and development is a matter of strategic concern for both Korean law schools and for us in Seattle. Our faculty has recommended several credit-hour changes to consider for the first year curriculum. The faculty curriculum committee is also considering how to provide more research and writing experiences for all law students. We are also asking ourselves how we can provide more emphasis on administrative and regulatory law. Our Korean friends understand how much professional practice takes place outside courtrooms. Perhaps we too, should consider how to introduce more content about the American administrative milieu into our classes.
After finishing a wonderful traditional Korean lunch with our SKKU colleagues in an interesting area that reminded me a bit of the artsy nature of the Fremont neighborhood in Seattle, Professors Kang and Takenaka paid a visit to the legal offices of Samsung, one of this country’s leading industrial concerns. There, they discussed our graduate programs and hopefully sowed the seeds for greater contacts in the future. Yours truly joined President Emmert for a newspaper interview. The young journalist asked several probing questions about our understanding of Korea and expressed a keen interest in learning more about the UW.
After more than an hour of conversation, we broke away to our last event in Korea, dinner at the U.S. Embassy with our ambassador, Governor Gregoire, and a cast of more than 150 people! The assembly represented some of the most successful people in Seoul, many of whom are UW alumni. Although the ambassador had to leave early to prepare for the Secretary of State’s visit on Thursday, he let our throng stay, enjoy the company, and recall the several memorable moments of this trip.
Our law school has helped to train a more than a generation of some of Korea's finest lawyers. They are citizen leaders in the very best sense that the phrase can be used. They are also excellent role models for any student. Just as we came to Korea, our alumni came to Seattle, they enjoyed our city as we have enjoyed theirs, they learned, and they applied that learning to the benefit of their country. Hopefully, we learned a few things while here and paved theroad for our learning even more in the days and years to come. Korea is a warm and friendly country, full of history and ambitions for the future. I look forward to our great law school working with the several great schools we visited on this trip.
To those of you in Seattle, start making your plans to visit this marvelous country. To our Korean colleagues reading this, thank you for your unbelievable hospitality. You make us proud. Rest assured that we will continue to work hard to make you as proud of your alma mater. We will be back (real soon)!
Dean Knight