The Korean studies program at Ohio State will be greatly enhanced with a transformative gift from Dr. Christopher Lee, a retired clinical assistant professor from the Ohio State Department of Radiology. His gift — the largest-ever to the program — will create the Dr. Lee Korean Studies Research Fund, which will make the Ohio State program among the top Korean studies programs in the country, and will advance research funding, create internships and expand partnerships.

The discretionary funding will be overseen by Chan Park, professor of Korean language, literature and performance studies. This most recent gift is in addition to earlier gifts from Lee that created two other funds that advance research and emphasize performance studies. In addition, Lee has two endowed scholarships, the S. Christopher Lee MD Medical Student Scholarship Fund and the Sungkyu Christopher Lee, MD Family Scholarship Fund, in the College of Medicine.

Originally from South Korea, Lee graduated from medical school in Korea and came to the U.S. for post-graduate training and a radiology fellowship at Ohio State. After working in private practice for many years, he retired at the age of 65 but returned to Ohio State to serve as a clinical professor of radiology for 10 years. He said he’ll never forget a scholarship he received as a young medical student, which helped him finish his studies and inspired him to “give back.”

“I would not be where I am now without the scholarship I was given, so I always wanted to help out and give back, and that’s the reason I started the scholarship at the College of Medicine,” he said. “Then I found the Korean language program and saw that the program was not as well-known as the Chinese or Japanese programs, so I thought ‘I need to even that out!’”

He continued, “I got to know Professor Chan Park and learned that she was interested in Korean performance art, so I talked with her and decided to set aside some endowment funds for performance. I kept thinking that I should help make this Korean language program even better if I could.”

And so he is. According to Park, “Ohio State’s Korean Performance Research Program, a major beneficiary of Dr. Lee’s generous gift, is a one-of-a-kind program, unmatched by any American university. With his generous gift, the Korean program will be able to provide extra provisions to reward students for their academic excellence and hard work. We will be strengthening our community, regional and international networks by producing Korean and Korea-related cultural events, performance, and academic panels and inter-university collaborations.”

She added, “The ultimate goal is, whatever field students enter after graduation, their paths will be enriched and clarified by the education of Korean language and culture they received from Ohio State, and they will be at the forefront of promoting the understanding and collaboration between Korea and the U.S.”

Meanwhile, Lee is enjoying some new interests after his long medical career. “I’m completely cut off from the medical field, and now I’m doing all of these culture and literary things, which I haven’t done, so I‘ve been spending a lot of time meeting new folks, traveling, learning, going to concerts and operas. I play a little golf and sometimes go hiking. All of these are my new hobbies. I’m very happy.”