For the last 14 days, from 7/13 (WED) to 7/25 (WED), our delegation which consists of Sung Woo Lee the President, Seung Ryul Jeong, the Vice President of Int'l Affairs and Public Relations, and Hong Jae Lim, the leader of the industry-educational cooperation, visited Canada for expanding international relations and inviting excellent foreign students. During this period, we visited 4 universities: Royal Roads University (Victoria, British Columbia), University of Regina (Regina, Saskatchewan), University of Winnipeg (Winnipeg, Manitoba), and Centennial College (Toronto, Ontario). It was a long journey crossing Canada from east to west, but the goal of increasing internationalization and activating international relationships between the universities made it worthwhile.

Despite the fact that this is an English-speaking world, Canada actually has no firm mutual exchange between local universities. This is due to the fact that most of local universities are focusing on mutual exchange with United States and England. However, Canada is a country which can provide more chances to young men of talent, offering plentiful resources, an eco-friendly environment, a similar education system to local universities, stable economic progress, positive employment and an immigration policy to attract highly educated human resources due to a lower density of population. Sung Woo Lee, the President of our university, has been searching for positive mutual exchange between universities in Canada in order to provide students at Kookmin University the chance to be global human resources.  Our delegation concluded an exchange student written agreement with Centennial College and concluded a general MOU for academic mutual exchange with Royal Roads University, the University of Regina, and the University of Winnipeg. KMU President Sung Woo Lee has begun his strategic concept, which will make a Canadian Academic Belt through a comprehensive and brisk mutual exchange between our university and Canadian universities.

The details of the international mutual exchange by each university are provided below.

1. Royal Roads University

Royal Roads University (located in Victoria, the state capital of British Columbia) agreed on the terms of short-term courses, student exchanges, and "two-plus-two" programs. Since Royal Roads University is especially known for the vitalization of Distance Learning, they've signed to make efforts to develop lecture exchange program using our RTES (Real-time Two-way Education System).
Victoria is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island. The city has a population of about three hundred thousand. Due to its Mediterranean climate, it has the most temperate climate in Canada and is famous for its beautiful mood. This is why they have many visitors all year round.

2. University of Regina

Our delegation visited the University of Regina, located in Regina, the state capital of Saskatchewan. We proposed a student exchange program and decided to dispatch 2 to 3 students every year. Also, the University of Regina signed to offer "two-plus-two" programs, in which students can take the first two years of our program at Kookmin, finish the last two years in Regina, and receive a diploma from both universities.

The Canadian government operates an immigration policy that gives permanent residence rights to students from 6 months to 1 year after they get job. Those who receive education for at least 2 years and then receive a degree will be offered 2 to 3 years of working permits. Accordingly, our students now have the chance to get permanent residence rights along with the ability to start work after completing their study by using the 2+2 cooperative system with Canadian universities. In addition, they concluded to have a variety of mutual exchange chances like the CEC collaboration management program, collaboration research and dispatching professors. Leader-Post, the main newspaper of Regina, showed their extra interest in our visit and the conclusion of the MOU between the University of Regina and KMU by the accompanied broadcasting.

The small city of Regina, known as the city of the Lake, was created around the Wascana Lake, and has a population of two hundred thousand. Regina is the home of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (Red Serge tunic and Black riding breeches), one of the symbols of Canada. Oil processing and the steel industry is a very important part of Saskatchewan's economy (40%). Only Alberta exceeds the province in overall oil production. Also, Saskatchewan is the major natural region where Prince Albert National Park is located.

3. University of Winnipeg

Our group of visitor's 3rd stop was the University of Winnipeg, located in Winnipeg, the state capital of Manitoba. Manitoba, located in the most central part of Canada, is one of the Prairie 3 states, and is Canada's wheat producing center along with Alberta, Saskatchewan. However, it is now trying to transform itself into an industrial state with meat processing, oil refining, steel and chemical plants, and electricity as main industries. Winnipeg, with a population of seven hundred thousand, is the hub for trains leading beyond the border to the United States and is also an important place for Canada's east to west ground transportation services.

The University of Winnipeg is a very important strategic partner with our university, so they concluded an interchange student program, dual degree programs, collaboration for other academic areas, and decided to move up the propulsion time as soon as possible. Also, they concluded to invite students for the interchange program and the 2+2 dual degree program at the end of December, and send them the following January. Specifically, the dual degree program of the University of Winnipeg allows KMU students to get a huge reduction in tuition by returning 40% of the tuition paid when they apply for work permits after graduate school. In addition to students from the University of Winnipeg, students of various nationalities will visit our campus through their decision to join our short-term program (3weeks) beginning next May.

From now on, six of our students can experience campus life in Canada through the concluded interchange student program with the University of Regina and the University of Winnipeg every year.

4. Centennial College

The group of visitors concluded to take prior management of the dual degree program in the vehicle engineering area, which allows students from Canada to study 2 or 3 years at Centennial College, receive an education rest period at our university, and then receive degrees from both organizations. This program, different from other local university's dual degree programs, is considered extremely special in that students of Canada acquire the final degree after transfer to our university. It is expected that many Centennial College Canadian students will receive education at our university through this program. Also, we concluded to allow students of Canada to do volunteer work in South Korea along with their study through the Global Citizenship and Equity Imperative Program of Centennial College.

Toronto is the biggest city in Canada with a population of 5 million, and is known as the Education City and the Hub of Business and Finance.  The city is very safe and beautiful despite the large scale, and it accomplishes the role of hub of international trade through marine transportation, being surrounded by Lake Ontario.

5. Memorial University of Newfoundland

Finally, our university concluded an MOU with Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN, Newfoundland and St, John's, Labrador). Our group of visitors did not actually visit at this time, but we concluded a cooperative management of academic mutual exchange program, an interchange student program, and a dual degree program. Seung Ryul Jeong, the Director of Foreign Relations from our university, was visiting MUN at the end of May and began the consultation, and then both universities' presidents finalized it at the start of July.  A huge economic benefit is predicted for our students who want to study in Canada because the tuition of our university is almost the same as the tuition for international students of MUN, the state college in Canada with a high reputation, which provides the lowest tuition.
(Related Article: http://www.kookmin.ac.kr/bbs/plus/722) 

This trip to Canada by the group of visitors from Kookmin University made an occasion for our school to become widely known in North America. It also seems that this will be a chance to accelerate the internationalization of our school through the application of RTES, the dual degree programs, interchange student programs, dispatching professors and research collaboration.

Through the agreement of the group of visitors, our school created a large scale Canadian Academic Belt, which expands to the easternmost part of Canada (St. John's) to the westernmost part (Victoria), passing through Regina, Winnipeg and Toronto.


Related Article
1. U of R, Korean university partner http://www.leaderpost.com/Korean+university+partner/5122697/story.html

2. University of Regina and Kookmin University in South Korea sign MOU http://www.uregina.ca/news/newsreleases.php?release=759

3. Memorial forges partnership with South Korean university during VP's visithttp://today.mun.ca/news.php?news_id=6440