By Catherine Darling Fitzpatrick and Kirstin Fawcett

Dr. Yonghwa Lee (AGI01) is such a strong believer in the St. John’s seminar that he brought it with him to South Korea. 

Lee, a professor of English language and literature at Incheon National University (INU), co-founded the school’s Great Books Center with colleagues in 2019. Based heavily on Lee’s own postgraduate education at St. John’s Annapolis, its discussion-based curriculum teaches students to critically engage with a variety of texts while honing their conversational skills. Promoting the liberal arts and discussion-based education in South Korea, Lee says, can “make our society healthier by bringing up free adults—that is, independent readers and thinkers who can work with other people—through books and a balance.”

Perspectives like this might be taken as a given at St. John’s, but not necessarily in Lee’s world, where the national educational system is heavily based on rote memorization for the standardized college entrance exam. College admissions is a competitive affair in South Korea, where it is widely perceived that attending a top school will yield a high-earning career. With job applicants outnumbering these coveted positions, the pressure begins for some as early as middle school. Students attend class, come home, and study some more; many add to their load by enrolling in extracurricular academics and private tutoring on top of homework. Burnout is rampant, and reading comprehension, curiosity, and interpersonal development are on the wane.

Lee became deeply concerned about youth education in South Korea after returning to his home country following more than a decade in the United States. He had attended high school and college in South Korea but knew he wanted to study abroad and across disciplines while pursuing an advanced degree. With these priorities in mind, he learned about the St. John’s Graduate Institute and decided to apply, matriculating on the Annapolis campus in 1999.

At St. John’s, Lee recalls surmounting the language barrier thanks in part to his “incredibly nice and patient” tutors and classmates and reading favorite Program authors such as Nietzsche, Euclid, and Melville. One memorable accomplishment of Lee’s includes an essay he wrote on Moby Dick: he explored Ahab as a fire worshiper, comparing him to a Greek tragic hero and the themes of Moby Dick to classic themes of sovereignty and hubris.

After receiving his master’s from St. John’s, Lee was accepted to a PhD program in 19^th-century American literature at Ohio State University, where he met his wife, another South Korean PhD student. She studied 19^th-century British literature— “We were stuck in the 19th century together,” Lee jokes. They made the journey back to South Korea in 2012; today, the couple shares two children, one of whom is college-bound.

 Lee, who had taught English literature in the States, noticed upon joining INU that subject-matter textbooks had long been his students’ only assigned reading. As a result, he found it difficult to teach beyond their scope. Meanwhile, mobile phones and social media platforms have increasingly siphoned their focus and desire to read.

At the heart of the blame lies not just technology but an educational system in South Korea that “ruins the creativity and imagination of students,” Lee says. “We need to do something to change this situation, to solve the problem. My position is that if you read great books while developing critical thinking skills, you will be able to be better in many things—it will make you a better thinker, a better reader, and a better problem-solver … Fortunately, I had the experience studying at St. John’s, and I feel that discussion-based classes seems to be the best solution.”

That’s where the Incheon Great Books Center comes in. With its open approach, curated reading list, and broad focus, it draws the interest of more college students and faculty each year. Courses offered across university departments focus on texts such as Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation, Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, Marx’s Communist Manifesto, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail.  In addition to seminar classes, the Great Books Center runs extracurricular curriculums and develops outreach programs to offer St. John’s-style seminars to high school and middle school students. That way, younger generations can become equipped with essential reading and discussion skills early enough that their academic habits—and inner lives—are forever changed.

The Great Books Center is still in its early years, but its impact is palpable: students at INU have reported improved close reading skills and increased intellectual curiosity after engaging in the program. And Lee says that a Great Books education like the one he has helped implement at INU can provide students with the tools to thrive not just inside, but outside, the classroom. “When I graduated from St. John’s, I felt qualified to do a lot of different jobs, to pursue a lot of different fields,” Lee says. “I want that same confidence to be available to students in South Korea when they finish their studies.”

Last summer, collegewide president Nora Demleitner traveled to the South Korean cities of Seoul, Incheon, and Chuncheon with Emily Langston, special advisor to the president former associate dean for graduate programs. First up on their itinerary was a trip to INU, where the two met with Lee, co-led a couple of seminars, and observed a Great Books-themed summer camp for teens. Demleitner and Langston later returned to Incheon before their voyage home and finalized a formal partnership between St. John’s College and INU. The two schools are now exploring faculty exchanges and student collaborations, while several Johnnie undergraduates have already received Hodson internships to spend their summers gaining work experience—and valuable perspective—at the Great Books Center.

“It was a truly eye-opening experience that broadened what I had previously thought to be possible within the scope of my future,” says Daniel Kim (A26), who spent eight weeks working with Korean high school students in seminar, among other duties. “Throughout the internship, I learned how the skills that I learned at St. John’s College can be a powerful tool in a career setting and how a passion for education can occur outside of the classroom.”