2025 Annual meeting - ATHENS, OHIO
Over the past 15 years, we have taken the Annual Meeting 'on to road' after many, many years of holding the meeting exclusively in the Washington DC area. This was overdue recognition of the fact that our members and friends are, in fact, located in almost every state of the country and, in fact, many are overseas. This year, we decided to experiment a bit with the location, as well as the content of the meeting. Here is some background on the event and how we think it went. To watch the video of the meeting, click here.
The Friends of Korea Annual Meeting & Public Program was held in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains on October 3-4 in Athens, Ohio on the historic campus of Ohio University (founded 1804). Our audience, comprised of college students and local residents from a region historically unfamiliar with Korean-related programming, were able to experience an innovative format for our two-day event titled Discover Korea.
In the early afternoon of Friday, October 3, Friends of Korea Board members shared their expertise by presenting hour-long sessions on a variety of topics:
• The Korean Wave (Jenna Gibson)
• Six Months in North Korea: Reflections & Relationships (Christy Gavitt)
• Translation from Korean Literature into English (Bruce Fulton)
• Past, Present & Future: Career Impact of the Peace Corps and Fulbright (Christy Gavitt, Jenna Gibson, Ekaterina Mozhaeva, and David Roden)
In the early afternoon of Friday, October 3, Friends of Korea Board members shared their expertise by presenting hour-long sessions on a variety of topics:
• The Korean Wave (Jenna Gibson)
• Six Months in North Korea: Reflections & Relationships (Christy Gavitt)
• Translation from Korean Literature into English (Bruce Fulton)
• Past, Present & Future: Career Impact of the Peace Corps and Fulbright (Christy Gavitt, Jenna Gibson, Ekaterina Mozhaeva, and David Roden)
In late afternoon, we had our Annual Membership meeting, where Gerry Krzic and David Roden described our activities during the past year. That was followed with our public program, including the presentation of the Kevin O’Donnell Distinguished Friend of Korea award to Greg Caldwell in recognition of his many decades of service creating and leading programs that foster cross-cultural understanding between Koreans and Americans.
There were two Giving Back recipients this year: The newly established School of International Studies and Languages (SISAL) at Ohio University and the annual summer Hanji Workshop at Oberlin College in Northeast Ohio. The award to SISAL is intended to support outreach programs focusing on East Asian cultures (e.g., Korea) for youth in public schools throughout the Ohio Appalachian region. The award for the Hanji workshop is intended to provide a scholarship for an up-and-coming artist to attend the workshop to create Hanji so that this traditional craft can continue to be appreciated throughout the world. The award to SISAL was presented to Dr. Haley Duschinski, founding director and the award for the Hanji workshop was presented to Korean-American artist Ms. Aimee Lee, America’s foremost authority on Hanji and founder of the summer workshop.
Following the awards, Aimee, our featured plenary speaker, described her experience entering Korea’s hanji culture during two of her Fulbright awards in Korea. She also displayed samples of her exquisite hanji art work. You can learn more about Aimee’s journey into the world of hanji in her book Hanji Unfurled and samples of her work at aimeelee.net.
On the morning of October 4th, Aimee facilitated a two-hour, hands-on joomchi (paper design) workshop at the University’s Kennedy Museum. Attendance was limited to 35 participants for the workshop and was sold out within 24 hours! (There was a $10 material fee.) There are some photos from the workshop in the slide show below.
In summary, feedback of the two-day event was extremely positive, attendees, particularly the Ohio students, described it as one of the best ways to learn about Korea. In sum, our goals for our Annual Meeting and Public Program were to provide an opportunity for a) more young people to participate in Friends of Korea activities, b) our Board to share their expertise and c) FoK to share its programing in a part of America that is typically underserved with Korean cultural events. We believe our goals were more than met!
There were two Giving Back recipients this year: The newly established School of International Studies and Languages (SISAL) at Ohio University and the annual summer Hanji Workshop at Oberlin College in Northeast Ohio. The award to SISAL is intended to support outreach programs focusing on East Asian cultures (e.g., Korea) for youth in public schools throughout the Ohio Appalachian region. The award for the Hanji workshop is intended to provide a scholarship for an up-and-coming artist to attend the workshop to create Hanji so that this traditional craft can continue to be appreciated throughout the world. The award to SISAL was presented to Dr. Haley Duschinski, founding director and the award for the Hanji workshop was presented to Korean-American artist Ms. Aimee Lee, America’s foremost authority on Hanji and founder of the summer workshop.
Following the awards, Aimee, our featured plenary speaker, described her experience entering Korea’s hanji culture during two of her Fulbright awards in Korea. She also displayed samples of her exquisite hanji art work. You can learn more about Aimee’s journey into the world of hanji in her book Hanji Unfurled and samples of her work at aimeelee.net.
On the morning of October 4th, Aimee facilitated a two-hour, hands-on joomchi (paper design) workshop at the University’s Kennedy Museum. Attendance was limited to 35 participants for the workshop and was sold out within 24 hours! (There was a $10 material fee.) There are some photos from the workshop in the slide show below.
In summary, feedback of the two-day event was extremely positive, attendees, particularly the Ohio students, described it as one of the best ways to learn about Korea. In sum, our goals for our Annual Meeting and Public Program were to provide an opportunity for a) more young people to participate in Friends of Korea activities, b) our Board to share their expertise and c) FoK to share its programing in a part of America that is typically underserved with Korean cultural events. We believe our goals were more than met!
