Establishing an American global campus in SUNY Korea: Challenges and excitement in preparing global engineers

Global outreach and collaboration of education and research in a globalized world will play a significant role in the 21^st century to prepare global engineers. In a global campus, students and faculty are thrust into a cross-cultural environment that challenges intellectually the modes of being and the ways of learning. A global engineer often has to face such cross-cultural tension when interacting with people under the context of globalization. Stony Brook University (SBU) in New York has established a global campus, called SUNY Korea, in Songdo, Republic of Korea, which serves as a venue for the preparation of global engineers. With a diverse student body and faculty, SUNY Korea reflects the spirit of globalization in offering an education that requires students to learn not only the skills of engineering and technology on the SUNY Korea campus, but also the American hallmarks of liberal arts education on the home campus in New York by choosing from among a rich variety of courses taught by nearly a thousand faculty members. This is accomplished by requiring SUNY Korea undergraduate students to take residency for at least two semesters on the home campus at SBU.