A sleepless night in Chicago, the first graduation in half a century
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- Writer 커뮤니케이션팀
- 보도일자 2013-07-25
On May 4 (local time), around 120 Korean women, from women in their forties to old ladies with thin, white hair in their eighties, gathered at the Colman Hall on the first floor of the Hyatt Hotel in Rosemont, Chicago. They watched the screen on the front wall of the hall in silence. The twenty old ladies wearing blue graduation gowns especially quietly shed a tear. The booklet they held in their had clearly said Sookmyung Women's University. It was the place of the 'Sookmyung 50+ honorary ceremony' provided for alumni in the American continents, who had graduated over 50 years ago.
The video started with the Sookmyung campus in the spring of 2013, with Japanese cherry blossoms flying in the air, and continued to show each building and facility of the university. Then, it went back in time to show black and white photographs of the 1st university graduation in 1952. The alumni watched the 'small gift' prepared by the university, as if looking back at records of their youth they had buried in their diaries.
Yoon Hyun-sook, the graduate representative who graduated from the Department of Korean Language and Literature in 1950, said, "I thank our alumni for providing such a precious moment so we could rediscover our hearts as young, dream-filled girls." President Hwang Sun-hae said, "Thanks to the full material and emotional support and efforts of our senior alumni, Sookmyung has become the university it is today," and added, "I wish an abundant and beautiful future for all of our alumni."
The honorary graduation was part of the schedule of our university as it visited Canada and the United States for a North American continent reunion. School personnel toured Canada and the United States from April 30 to May 9, and held regional North American reunions.
As the school visited Vancouver (Vancouver branch), San Francisco (Northern branch), LA (Southern branch) and other areas, the alumni not only provided alumni with accommodation and meals, but also relayed a development fund of 300,000 dollars raised by alumni. The university plans to enact a Proud North American continent Alumnus Sookmyung Award and hold an awards ceremony every two years at the North American continent reunion, starting in 2015.
Meanwhile, our university also reached a relay exchange agreement with prestigious universities in Canada and the United States, while completing the busy North American continent reunion schedule. We reached an agreement with one of the top US universities, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, on ay 3, and an academic agreement with Royal Roads University Canada on May 1.