Brite to add Korean Studies Program
Asian Christianity program to begin next fall
By Marci King
Staff Reporter

The Brite Divinity School will add a Korean Studies Program to its curriculum in the fall of 2002, said Leo Perdue, president of Brite.

Perdue said the program was made possible by a grant from the Christian Church Disciples of Christ.

“They gave us a three year grant to get the program started,” Perdue said. “This will give us time to develop resources and an endowment to continue the program after those three years.”

Timothy Lee, currently a visiting assistant professor at the University of California Los Angeles, will head the new program, Perdue said. Lee arrives at TCU this summer and will begin teaching in August as an assistant professor of history of Christianity and Asian studies, he said.

“He will teach traditional material along with his specialty, Asian Christianity,” Perdue said.
The program is designed to aid people who want to build churches for Korean Americans, Lee said. The program will focus on Christianity in Asia and will be available to all students on campus, Lee said.

“This program will help the first generation of Korean American ministers train other ministers who will follow them,” Lee said.

Lee, who is originally from South Korea, said many of the ministers will not have a high fluency in the English language when they begin this course. They will be trained in Korean while they work on their English skills, and at the end of their training they will graduate with a degree from Brite, he said.

“Our goal is to build a strong, vibrant Korean American community,” Lee said.

TCU is one of only a few universities in this part of the country with a Korean Studies Program, Perdue said. The University of California at Los Angeles and the University of California at Berkeley both have a Korean Studies Program.

MARCI KING
m.l.king@student.tcu.edu

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