After having decided last May to offer Korean language and culture classes, the College is now in the process of hiring faculty to begin teaching in the fall of 2002.
A search has just been authorized for two professors. According to Dean of the Faculty Jamshed Bharucha, positions will be created for a visiting professor instructing students in Korean language and a tenure-track professorship to teach Korean studies.
Tentative plans for a Korean foreign study program are also in the works, although Bharucha said that his office would "need to get the faculty on board" before sending students abroad.
The program will be an extension of the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Asian and Middle Eastern Literatures and Languages departments.
Although Dartmouth just decided to offer Korean language classes this past May, student pressure to add such a program began 12 years ago, and became one subject in a large-scale student protest last spring.
According to both Bharucha and Associate Dean of the Social Sciences David Blanchflower, student opinion played a large role in the decision to add the new courses.
"We've listened to what the students want, and now we're going to work on the details," Blanchflower said last May.
Bharucha echoed Blanchflower's sentiment yesterday.
"I think that students always play an important role in letting us know what some of their expectations and aspirations are, and we certainly take those into consideration," Bharucha said. He noted, however, that the faculty make the final decisions regarding curriculum.
Indeed, the College had its own reasons for creating the program.
"We are an increasingly global society," Bharucha explained. "Dartmouth is known for its international program, and it's a strength we can build upon."
Until Dartmouth's decision to create the Korean language program, it was the only Ivy League institution not offering classes on the subject or in the language.
Bharucha replaced former Dean of the Faculty Edward Berger this July.
