After a marathon flight, from Cairo Airport to Incheon Airport, between the joy of flying, and the anxiety of waiting and staring at the screens of the travel gates, I thought after we left in that spring weather that we were heading to the hotel, but my friend, the veteran Korean journalist Lee Sang-ki, the former president of the Journalists Association  of Korea, who was waiting for me, told me that we were going to attend an exceptional event in an exceptional place: the only Korean university for women!

A university for the most intelligent beings

The occasion was the first official appearance of the new, eleventh president of the college, Professor Yook Dong In. It is not surprising that the president of the Women's University is a man, as the university was founded by another great man, Chang Ki Paik, after he established the Taeyang Education Foundation in 1990. This institution, in turn, established Kyungin Women's University (KIWU) in 1991. The founder with the first president of the university, Kim, Gil-ja, running the institution and the university based on the spirit of justice, love, truth and creativity, to contribute greatly to the welfare of women in Korea. 

At that time, women had relatively few opportunities, and the goal was to become skilled professionals in the labor market. They competed with men, which happened over the years, and Kyungin Women's University flourished as the leading university in the Gyeonggi and Incheon regions. Kyungin Women's University's vision for development was to go hand in hand with the local community, to promote women professionally, to face and challenge future innovation with true knowledge and human respect.

At the celebration, the founder and his wife ascended to the stage, and behind every successful man is an inspiring woman, a role played by his partner in life and work, and everyone took turns delivering words that distilled the wisdom of the years, and President Yook received the flag of the new presidency, and the honorees, including professors and students, received , the rewards and flowers of excellence, everyone sits down and an opera troupe of three young men in black suits, performing songs summarizing the Korean musical culture that carries tradition with one hand, and modernity with the other.

A second visit

This was the first visit to the university, but five days later the visit will be repeated, as I head a delegation from the Asia Journalist Association (AJA) from nine countries: Egypt, Lebanon, Bahrain, Cambodia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, Kyrgyzstan, and Korea. I did not miss gifting the president of the university and its library, which has become a destination for female students in Korea and abroad (450 students from 20 countries), a collection of my books in different languages.  We will spend this visit among the university’s orchards and its facilities. We take pictures in front of its twentieth anniversary mural with the faces of its female students. We move steps and glances between the high-rise, beautiful buildings on both sides, and the wide spaces embroidered with flowers of various names and colors, seedlings and trees, and across the sidewalks we contemplate the statues on the sides of the meadows, and everyone is busy taking pictures.

During the official welcoming ceremony, we watched a documentary film about the prestigious educational institution dedicated to empowering women through education and helping them achieve their goals. There are 25 majors, and since every rule has an exception, all majors are for girls, except for one mixed department, which also accepts male students, which is the Foreign Languages Department! 

There are 4,000 female and male students in the university’s various departments, whether in the fields of business, humanities, social sciences or natural sciences, for undergraduate and postgraduate programs, in addition to professional development courses and workshops to help students enhance their skills and knowledge, with a commitment to providing a supportive learning environment. Comprehensive and comprehensive for all students to help them succeed academically and personally, to ensure they have the necessary resources to excel in their studies. In addition to its academic programs, Kyungin University for Women also offers a variety of activities to participate in the community, whether in sports teams and cultural clubs, with volunteer programs and internships, providing... The university provides students with a comprehensive education that prepares them for success in all aspects of their lives.

It was Ms. Kyungwook Park, Director of the Office of International Affairs, who led us to various departments of the university, to see the classrooms and physical activity halls. We learned about the departments that provide vocational training for girls, such as nursing and care, health information and management, human and environment, social care, animal health care, tourism, aviation and hotels, culinary arts and hotel bakery, foreign languages, food nutrition, aviation services, hotel and tourism management, design, beauty, advertising design, fashion design, skin care and beauty, hair beauty, children's education, early childhood education, early childhood care and arts education, childhood education and care, knowledge and management, business administration, international trade and commerce, business finance, tax accounting, IT broadcast, software convergence, video broadcast etc. 

Women's bowling

Time was running out, especially since the company practiced sports comfortably in the bowling alley, and if everyone who studied had to participate in sports activities, the rule has expanded today to include visitors as well. Our Lebanese media colleague and visual artist, Ghena Halik, excelled in bowling, and her ball hit the stacked row, knocking it down, as if she felt that her presence at the women’s university was enough to inspire her to excel.

Suddenly we found ourselves inside a plane. The university had brought part of a real plane to teach its daughters the arts and sciences of hospitality. This is how we attended the live class on aviation services. In the department there are hotel rooms, a bank, and clubs, as if they were parts of real cities, so that the female students can train in a parallel world, before they go out to work in the real world.

Between one building and another, flowers were sending out their fragrances, as if they were greeting us. We learned that the university plants many flowers and trees on campus according to their seasons, all year round. It instils the value of natural beauty, just as statues are distributed among them to establish an appreciation for the beauty of plastic art, and between them, studying minds develop.

The university cooperates with many other countries within the framework of exchange programs. Educational institutions in Cambodia, Mongolia, the Philippines, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Russia, Malaysia, the Emirates, Vietnam, the United States of America, Australia, Japan, Hungary, and China participate within the framework of international exchange programs. The presence of the church building next to the administration building was not surprising, as the women's university was inspired by Christian values such as justice and love and added them to the basic principles of the Korean education system in cognitive and professional research.