South Korean Ambassador to the U.S. Yang, Sung Chul will give an address on Korea-U.S. relations and South Korea's Sunshine Policy April 2 at 10 a.m. in the Public Events Room, Room 220 of Eggers Hall on the Syracuse University campus. It will be Yang's first address in the wake of the recent summit between President George W. Bush and South Korean President Kim, Dae Jung, and negative European reaction to Bush's handling of the summit.
The presentation will be the first in The Maxwell School's Pyo Wook Han Lecture Series, named after the former Korean ambassador to the United States and SU alumnus. Before the address, Han, a 1942 graduate of The College of Arts and Sciences, will be awarded the Chancellor's Medal by Chancellor Kenneth A. Shaw. Han's son, Victor, will accept the award on his father's behalf.
Yang is a well-known political scientist and author with a long career in academia and politics. Previous to being named ambassador to the United States, he was a member of the Korean National Assembly, during which time he served as president of the Unification and Policy Forum and chair of the International Cooperation Committee for the National Congress for New Politics. He also served as vice chair of the Unification and Foreign Affairs Committee and was a member of the Political Reform Committee. Mostly recently, Yang served as an executive member of the New Millennium Democratic Party's 21st Century National Affairs Advisory Committee.
He was a professor at Eastern Kentucky University from 1970 to 1975 and at the University of Kentucky from 1975 to 1986. Yang has also been a visiting professor at Northwestern University. From 1987 to 1994, he was dean of academic affairs at the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies at Kyung Hee University in South Korea. He has served as the secretary-general of the Association of Korean Political Scientists in North America and as president of the Korean Association of International Studies.
Author of several books on Korean issues, Yang received a bachelor's degree from Seoul National University in 1964, a master's degree from the University of Hawaii in 1967 and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Kentucky in 1970.
