Moo-Young Han
Editor-in-Chief
myhan@phy.duke.edu
In late October I received in the mail an official solicitation letter for monetary contributions from KAST,the Korean Academy of Science and Technology. The letter was signed by the current President of KAST, Prof. Moo-Sik Juhn, and was mailed by Prof. S. K. Juhn of the University of Minnesota Hospital on behalf of KAST to all KAST members residing in the US. According to the letter, the fund-raising campaign is launched for the purpose of making KAST (in Korean, Hankook Kwahak Kisool Hallym Won) financially self-sufficient, a meritorious goal with laudable support.
Since the roster of the membership in the US has apparently been sent to one member, I asked for a copy of it assuming that such a roster of an academy must be a public record. Much to my disappointment, however, I am still waiting for a reply - so far a stony silence. This led me to do some investigation and what follows is a brief summary of what I have been able to ascertain to this point, and some thoughts on helping to make the KAST the pinnacle of Korean scholars the way it should be.
KAST was established 5 years ago, in 1994, as the very highest scholarly organization in the field of Korean science and technology, as the designation "Academy" implies. Originally it started as the Korea Science and Technology Association - that is, "Association" rather than "Academy" - with about 500 scientists residing in Korea, mostly science and technology faculty members and heads of scientific institutions including all former and current presidents of all sorts of scientific organizations.
Things began to deteriorate when they decided to rename themselves, changing from an Association to an Academy, a term reserved for the highest scholarly bodies, to wit, such as the US National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society, the Israel Academy of Sciences, the Japan Academy and so on. Many of the 500 or so members simply did not qualify. By some estimate, the unqualified members may account for up to 90%.
Evidently, KAST itself realized this embarrassing situation and as a remedy they proposed a two-tiered membership: life-long membership and term (5-years) membership. The rationale of this appears to be that by placing many unqualified members into the ranks of term members, KAST can begin to shed these members when their term is up. Sounds simple in principle, but in reality it creates more problems. Who and how to decide where the cutoff should be is clearly one new problem. Secondly, the collective force of the threatened members is stronger than that of the reform camp. Maybe the term members will kick out the lifelong members instead!
Under a shifting and unclear situation in their attempt to metamorphose itself, KAST has apparently become reluctant to release the roster of its membership in the US, lest it should raise a storm of criticism and ridicule. For a body of the highest scholarly organization, as the designation "Academy" should imply, the sorry state of the KAST is truly shameful and regrettable. It certainly is a time for change.
May I offer the following suggestions?
As for my membership to KAST, I have actually declined invitation in December of 1996 for reasons that are contained in my letter (sent by fax) to Dr. Wan-Kyu Cho, then President of KAST. My letter dated December 18, 1996 follows:
Dr. Wan-Kyu Cho, President, KAST
c/o Ms. Misook Kim, KAST office
December 18, 1996
Dear President Cho:
My warmest greetings, both private and seasonal, to you and your loved ones. I have always cherished your friendship and kindness to me, and let me send you not only my best wishes for the New Year but my deepest congratulation on your new leadership.
I fully support the ideals and objectives of the newly formed KAST and will certainly not shy away from contributing my small part in any manner that would be helpful toward achieving the goals set forth by KAST. Today, I find myself in a rather unfortunate position, however, of having to decline your generous invitation to become a foreign member of the Academy. Let me explain.
The word 'Academy,' as I am sure that you are aware, and 'Academician' mean the highest accolades among the scholarly circles in the world. For example, the US National Academy, the Royal Societies of Europe, Russian Academy, Israel Academy, Japan Academy or even the Academia Sinica, stands for the highest prestige and recognition of professional achievements. When so-and-so is referred to as an 'Academician' it implies automatically that the person, at least in his/her field, is almost immediately recognizable by his/her colleagues the world over. I sincerely hope, and trust, that under your leadership the KAST will strive toward achieving such a lofty status.
I learned, however, that the current and former Presidents of all overseas Korean Scientists and Engineers Associations are automatically invited to its membership simply on the merit of having been such Presidents (myself included!). I have a great difficulty in bridging the gap in what I perceive to exist between the qualifications of the Presidents of these organizations and the implications of the honor and the prestige of being an 'Academician.' To put it bluntly, I personally do not feel that the current and former Presidencies of these organizations, just by themselves, warrant such an 'Academic' membership.
If, in the future, I should be fortunate enough to be invited to the KAST membership, based solely on my achievements as a physicist, I would be very honored to join and do whatever I can to help KAST achieve its goals. With many distinguished Korean scientists and engineers overseas, the very idea of offering an automatic membership to those whose qualifications are only that they served as Presidents of the various KSEAs appears, in my view, to be counterproductive. It is for these reasons that I have decided most respectfully to decline the invitation to the KAST membership.
Moo-Young Han (M. Y. Han)
Professor of Physics
Duke University