Founding Philosophy and
Background of Yonsei University

At the urging of the United Board of Christian Higher Education in Asia, a Christian missionary organization based in New York, and with the initial grant of $100,000 as the seed money by UBCHEA, the Board of Trustees of the Yonsei University of Seoul, Korea has resolved to establish a language training center in the United States. Such a language training center shall be patterned after its very successful language training programs offered by the Yonsei Language Center of the Yonsei University, which has been providing language training for American missionaries in the past. The Board of Trustees of the Yonsei University further resolved to select Los Angeles as the site for its U.S. Yonsei Language Center. In October of 1997, the Yonsei Language Institute was officially launched in Los Angeles as a private post-secondary institution, incorporated as a non-profit California corporation.

Another important factor that hastened the establishment of YLI in Los Angeles was the acceptance of the Korean as a foreign language examination by the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). Many second generation Americans of Korean descent would like to take Korean language as a foreign language in the hope that they can earn a high score. This new development in the United States caused a severe shortage of qualified Korean language instructors to prepare high school students to take the Korean language examination and earn a high score. Because language studies always results in a greater understanding of the cultural background of the people who speak the language, the language training center was welcomed by the Korean community in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas.

The Yonsei University was established in 1885 by the consortium of U.S. Protestant missionaries in Korea. More important, it is the oldest university in Korea. Today, the Yonsei University has a student body of over 50,000 with 20 colleges and 18 graduate schools and professional schools. In Korea, it is regarded as the "Harvard of Korea." Reflecting the American heritage of the founders of this first institution of higher education in Korea, the motto of the Yonsei University is "Truth and Freedom." One of the founding philosophies of YLI is to provide language training for immigrants so that they can assimilate into mainstream American society more easily than otherwise. Its mission is to provide effective language training to missionaries and any individual who wish to acquire functional fluency in Korean so that they will effectively serve as missionaries, foreign service personnel, businessmen, lawyers, and scholars for bridging between the two countries.

It is the firm belief of the founders of YLI that, by providing an academic environment conducive for the students to study language, graduates will increase their understanding of the cultural heritage of both Korea and the United States, thereby better equipping them to make worthwhile contributions to the enhancement of cross-cultural understanding between the people of the United States and Korea.