Fall 2006

Gift establishes Asian Business Program

The expansion of Miami University’s international study opportunities in the Pacific Rim has received a major boost with a gift from the president of Miami’s Alumni Association in Korea.

Prominent Korean business leader Higgin Kim `69 is CEO of Seoul-based Byucksan Engineering and Construction Co. His $1 million gift will establish the Higgin Kim Asian Business Program within Miami’s Richard T. Farmer School of Business. Income from the endowment will enhance the school’s Pacific Rim summer study program and semester long exchange programs with premier universities in Asia.

Kim, who came to Miami University and to the US when he was 18, said college students are in a position to learn the most from their travels. “I know that I learned so much,” he said. “The least I can do is help students now have the opportunity to learn about another part of the world.”

He said that cross-cultural education is not just about using chopsticks. “It’s the history. There’s only 200 years in the U.S. In China, Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, there is so much history,” he said. “It’s learning that America is not all there is.”

Having been a part of two cultures himself, Kim observed that Americans “in the strongest country in the world” are bound to be self-content and not interested in other nations. “This (program) gets Miamians, Midwestern hardworking, nice people to venture to Asia,” he said. “When they see for themselves what Asia is doing for the world, and how in developing countries people want to live

“The goal of the Higgin Kim Asian Business Program is to promote educational exchange programs and research opportunities between the Farmer School and business schools and corporations in Asia,” explained Sooun Lee, coordinator of the school’s Asia business studies program and professor of decision sciences and management information systems.

“It is absolutely essential that our students – and our faculty – understand the cultures and economies of the dynamic nations of East Asia. Thanks to Mr. Kim’s gift, we will strengthen ties with key institutions and corporations that will be advantageous to us and to them,” said Dean Roger L. Jenkins. “It will have an important impact on the school of business.”

Kim received an honorary doctoral degree from Miami University in 2002 for his significant contribution to the Korean business society and to the Richard T. Farmer School of Business Pacific Rim summer program.