Alumni Profile - Abraham Lee
Education: U.C. Berkley (BS/BA), U. C. San Diego (MA), I.E. Business School (Doctorate)
Currently: Handong Global University and Pacific Strategy Institute, Pohang, Korea
Abraham Lee is Professor of International Business at Handong Global University in Pohang, Korea. In addition, he leads the private consulting practice, Pacific Strategy Institute, which consults western firms and organizations reaching foreign markets as well as provides networking opportunities for Western experts to teach and consult for leading organizations in Asia. Thirteen years ago he was a Witherspoon Fellow in Washington D.C. and studied under Alan Crippen.
Newsworthy caught up with him recently and asked him a few questions:
What was the most challenging/memorable aspect of your Fellowship with Alan Crippen?
The most memorable experience was taking road trips to historic areas around the Northeast and being given an incisive and unified historic perspective of our nation, its early leaders and their values and beliefs, and the leadership qualities that made them men and women of influence and impact. I never found this in rote learning in the conventional classroom experience. It reconfirmed that in life nothing comes from nothing; national trajectories develop from decision makers and personalities that arise out of a historical tradition - ours from a faith tradition that was rooted in Christian principles. This made the American Revolution markedly different from the French Revolution. America still serves as an example of democracy and freedom around the world today.
How did your experience as a Fellow help you to prepare for your current work?
The value of my experience as a Fellow is probably the new network of people I was able to get to know. Any young person's circle of mentors and advisers are severely limited in their youth, and most young people who grow up in the public school system as I did, do not have adult role models they feel they can emulate. It was good for me to get to know Christians involved in public life and professional work and hear about how they struggle to bring their faith values to bear on the making of public policy, social programs, and managing businesses. That's what young people need: more examples of how to go about dynamically living out their faith in the real world. We need to disabuse young people from thinking that there is a rift between sacred and secular professions.
Tell us about the work you are currently doing.
As busy as I am with "worldly endeavors," teaching college students is my primary satisfaction and I feel they are my extension into making a difference in the rapidly developing 10-40 window. Our school brings students on full scholarship to study in Korea and sends them back into strategic and key positions of influence in their countries. We also bridge best practices from the U.S. to the needs of the developing world. This is vital work in an age of increasing anti-American sentiment and increasing cost for high-quality higher education. Schools in the U.S. are reluctant or unprepared to accept more than handful international students who cannot pay the full tuition. Modern Korea, on the other hand, has a strong and active Christian presence and is the strategic stepping stone for Christian missions into the rest of Asia. People who do not appreciate the important ramifications of this will not be able to view Korea beyond television sitcom M.A.S.H. imagery and the North Korea political imbroglio. There is always a spiritual element involved in these things that people hooked to mass media will not easily understand. Our work is ultimately to bring the power of the Gospel of God's redemption all the way back to Jerusalem, and it is done one person at a time. That is why, figuratively, we call our campus the "Papyrus Basket" and have set up a foundation by the same name. Nameless young leaders around the world are being lost in the ruins of despair in the developing nations. Our job is to bring them over to our campus via the immense global Christian missionary network so that they can be trained to be principled leaders who seek to serve in the best interest of their people in their nations. In fact, our school has the only western-style law program in Asia. We do not force Christianity on them, as any true conversion must be by gentle persuasion; if they do not receive Christ, we do not love our students any less. Our campus is very diverse and very rich.
What would you like to tell donors who support the John Jay Institute?
Even in this age of ubiquitous cell phones and trendy youth culture, there are still many solid and faithful young people from modest backgrounds who continue to need financial support to get them the leadership training they need to bloom. While it's sometimes hard to pin-point who those deserving young people are, organizations like the John Jay Institute are in a better position to identify them and provide them the resources they need. It's an investment that truly will truly have lifelong and, these days, even global consequences. We can never trivialize what one passionate life in Christ can do.
