ISU partners with South Korean Chungnam University to push innovation—especially with AI – WGLT

Illinois State University formalized a new international partnership Tuesday, signing a joint memorandum of understanding with Chungnam National University in Seoul, South Korea.
At a signing ceremony before lunch, Chungnam President Jeong-Kyoum Kim said he’d been in Normal for less than three hours, but it already felt like home.
“It’s probably that my background college is education,” he said through an interpreter. “And staff and faculty are really generous. That’s why I feel really comfortable, and feel like I’m home now.”
ISU President Aondover Tarhule said the agreement is the first step in establishing an exchange of culture and knowledge between the two universities, while leaning into similarities and shared values.
That includes research and innovation with special emphasis on the appropriate use of artificial intelligence.
“At such a time as this, when global challenges increasingly demand global solutions, partnerships such as ours are not only beneficial—they’re essential,” Tarhule said.
Among the opportunities open to the two institutions are collaborative research, knowledge sharing among faculty and staff and the potential for students to study abroad.
“What is really important here, I think, is the cross nature of what we can learn from each other,” Tarhule said.
Tarhule said he was particularly impressed by the partnerships developed with Chungnam’s engineering program. That’s something to consider as ISU builds out its campus on G.E. Road for the still-new College of Engineering.
“I think you are situated next to an industrial area specifically to synergize those partnerships,” he said. “That is something that we at Illinois State can learn.”
Tarhule also found kinship between the universities’ agriculture programs and lauded Chungnam’s many research institutes.
“And of course you’re one of 10 national flagship universities, which in Korea it’s a big honor given you have almost 200 universities.”
The partnership, which was prompted by a former ISU faculty member who now works for Chungnam, is in its early stages, with meetings just beginning to take place over the past several months.
President Kim said he felt good about his Tuesday morning meetings on campus.
Among those was a stop at ISU’s Adaptive Edge Institute, which is leading the way on responsibly adopting AI on campus.
South Korea is far ahead of the United States in developing and adopting AI, but Executive Director of International Engagement Roopa Rawjee said “we, too, are doing some amazing work.”
Rawjee said the partnership is an opportunity to challenge assumptions, engage in conversations and “come back with concrete learning and understanding of each other’s cultures—and how we are all working with AI in this new era.”
During his remarks, Kim said through an interpreter most AI in Korea is “top down.” Kim was intrigued by ISU’s approach, with policy recommendation driven by faculty and staff.
“Top-down strategy looks like it works in the short-term, but over time, it doesn’t work,” he said, saying institutions should use a ground-up strategy for as long as they can.
Rawjee attended the meeting and said she’s interested in seeing how two cultures work differently with AI.
“Some of the pieces that came out are about embracing the uncertainty of AI,” she said, “embracing the humanness of it, making sure the humans are using critical learning skills and critical thinking skills to utilize AI in a responsible way.
“That really resonated with our visitors,” she said.
Rawjee said AI policymaking is another topic ISU hopes to collaborate on.
“One of the pieces that really resonated was the work occurring at our Metcalf School with our middle school students,” she said, “…talking about responsible use of AI and thinking about how AI can help our teachers and our faculty do a better job of our learning plans and our prep materials.”
Rawjee said collaborations with Chungnam will be of a variety of types, including virtual conferences and bringing visiting faculty and scholars to ISU. Director of the Mennonite College of Nursing’s Office of Nursing Research [and native Korean] Myoung Jin Kim will be the first faculty fellow for the Adaptive Edge Institute.
“The world is our oyster and we’re so excited about everything we’re going to be able to do together,” she said.
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