The University of Oregon’s Korean minor has undergone several changes in the past five years, marked by high staff turnover and curriculum revisions. In the Fall of 2022, the professor listed to teach Korean 201 and 301 withdrew from the course, leading to the sudden hire of Changhoon Lee.

Students in Lee’s class later discovered he was not a licensed educator but rather the husband of Associate Professor of Korean literature and culture, Jina Kim, which was confirmed by University Spokesperson and Director of Issues Management Angela Seydel.

Emma Zallee, a fifth-year Korean minor, was informed about Lee and Kim’s relationship through a fellow classmate.

“A classmate of mine was regularly visiting Professor Kim at office hours to discuss issues with the 301 curriculum and Mr. Lee’s teaching style,” she said. “Professor Kim told them directly in those office hours meetings.”

Zallee recalled the confusion on the first day of class when students arrived expecting Professor Boyoung Kim and were met with Lee instead. 

“This man that nobody knew was standing at the front of the class,” Zallee said. “He explained that he had been hired two weeks before the term started and was just given all this curriculum that he’d never seen before.”

According to Eric Howald, UO spokesperson, in extenuating situations, the Office of the Provost may allow departments to hire instructors without master’s degrees.

“In accordance with this process, the university hired Mr. Lee to teach high-demand courses in Korean on a temporary basis,” Howald said.

According to Zallee, Lee lacked the basic UO resources for instructing the class and relied on Kim’s access. Within the 201 and 301 course syllabi, the information listed differs. In the 301 syllabus, Lee provided a Yahoo email address and the header featured the name “Keunyoung Lee” followed by the wrong year, 2021.

“He didn’t have a UO email, and he didn’t have access to the Canvas page, which was still listed under Jina Kim,” Zallee said.

Students enrolled in the class lacked any information and received no clarifying communication from Kim, according to Zallee. 

“Everyone was super confused,” Zallee said.

Criticism of the instructor’s teaching methods were echoed by numerous students, including Korean minor Sarah Bathke. They described grading policies as “arbitrary” and complained that homework was often not uploaded to Canvas. 

“We did a lot of really unstructured speaking practice, which was the first time we’d ever had that in the curriculum,” Zallee said. “It was nice but very unstructured. He was a little abrasive.”

A turning point came when students learned more about the instructor’s background. 

“A friend of mine talked to Jina (Kim) because they had other classes with her, and they found out this man is Jina’s husband,” Zallee said. “He (was) not a licensed professor, and at the time, he had limited, if any, teaching experience. He just happened to be a native speaker and Jina’s husband.”

Bathke described the “frustration” students felt that “nothing got done.”

“I know that other people went and raised concerns,” they said.

Traditional methods of voicing complaints, such as course surveys, were unsuccessful according to Zallee.

“The class survey at the end of the course was under Jina Kim’s name,” she said, “So everybody who did the course survey either looked like they were evaluating Jina or they had to write (Lee’s name) in the course survey.”

After the term ended, Zallee was “surprised” to encounter Lee in her Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) program. 

“After that term, he was a classmate of mine in my teaching courses,” she said. “I don’t actually know if he was a SLAT student or if he was a graduate student in Language Teaching Studies (LTS), the classes are the same and the professors are the same.”

Since then, Lee taught the 300-level Korean course sequence during the 2023-2024 academic year with access to both a canvas page and a UO email. However, neither Lee nor Kim are currently teaching in the Korean program.

Howald said that there was no conflict of interest.

“His spouse was not involved in the hiring process or decision,” Howald said.

Bathke described the experience as a “disaster” and felt it derailed their language proficiency.

“I should be much more proficient, (and) much more confident as a speaker,” Bathke said. “That class was the beginning of my second year, and my foundation was just ripped away. It completely messed up my trajectory of learning.”

Bathke said this structure affected their performance in the class.

“I remember we, like, did horribly on the midterm,” Bathke said.

Some students said they were forced to rely on each other as well as graduate employees. 

“The GEs were lifelines,” Bathke said. “Our GE basically retaught everything during discussion sections and answered all our questions because he (Lee) wasn’t capable of teaching.”

The Daily Emerald reached out to Changhoon Lee and Jina Kim but did not receive a response. The Korean Program refused to comment on the matter.