—Keio Honors President Jeong’s Economic Research and Efforts in Realizing Three Campus Consortium

On December 5, Yonsei President Jeong Kap-young received an honorary Ph.D. in economics from Japan’s Keio University.  In his remarks, Keio President Atsushi Seike highlighted President Jeong’s substantial contributions to the field of economics, both in research and teaching, as well as his impact upon higher education and university administration in Asia.  President Seike also expressed his desire for a closer relationship between Yonsei and Keio, one that will allow for more strategic collaboration in the future.  The award ceremony was attended by a number of senior officials and faculty members from both universities. Other guests included Yonsei alumni living in Japan and Yonsei students currently enrolled in the Three Campus Consortium, a year-long study abroad program in which students take courses at Yonsei, Keio, and the University of Hong Kong. 

After the ceremony, President Jeong gave a talk at Keio on “The Yonsei Paradigm: An Architecture for Private Higher Education in Asia.” In it, he emphasized Yonsei’s role in creating and disseminating knowledge in the contemporary information society. In order for a private university to fulfill its goals of fostering high quality education and research, he explained, the institution must be given the freedom to make its own choices. In fact, a model private university should have freedom as its core value.  Pointing to the Yonsei International Campus (YIC) in Songdo, which contains the first Residential College (RC) program in Asia, President Jeong argued that Yonsei’s firm commitment to freedom has resulted in the most well-rounded university education in South Korea.  In particular, he singled out Underwood International College (UIC) and the Information Technology Graduate School as models of integrated education and emblematic of a new paradigm in Asian higher education. President Jeong called this the “Yonsei Paradigm.”

Yonsei and Keio are both prestigious private universities, and they maintain a number of active partnerships and exchanges, while being sponsors of the Korea-Japan Millennium Forum. In 2012, an MOU was agreed to by the two schools, which led to the establishment of a university office on each other’s campus, along with several consortiums, research collaborations, and exchanges.   

President Jeong graduated from Yonsei in 1975 with a degree in economics. He earned his master’s degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1981 and his Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University in 1985. In 1986, he was hired as a professor of economics at Yonsei. Between 2004 and 2006, he served as director of the Information Technology Gradate School and University Affairs Division; following this, he was Vice President of the Wonju Campus from 2006 to 2008.  And, in 2012, he began his term as President of Yonsei University. President Jeong has also held a number of government positions, including chairman of the Strategy Committee for the Ministry of Law, Presidential Committee advisor to the People’s Economics Board, and chairman of the Macroeconomics Division. 

President Jeong is prolific writer, having published several books for the general public, such as Nine Is Bigger than Ten, Caron’s Coin, and Reading Economics through Graphic Novels. He has also appeared as a featured panelist for television programs that include MBC’s Economics You Can Grasp, KBS’s Economy Focus, and SBS’s TV Column. Through these platforms, President Jeong has played an important role in helping the Korean people understand difficult economic concepts.  For his work as an economist, President Jeong is listed in Marquis’s Who’s Who in the World, while receiving such honors as the Dasan Economics Award, Maekyoung Economist Award, and Proud Korean Award.