South Korea's Woosong University has named John E. Endicott, professor of the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and director of the Center for International Strategy, Technology and Policy for the past 18 years at Georgia Tech, as its next president and vice chancellor. Endicott will also serve as the vice chancellor of Solbridge International. Endicott will assume his new posts at the schools in Daejeon, South Korea on August 20.

"It's a great challenge and a wonderful way to have an impact directly on east Asia," said Endicott.

Endicott will be the first American president of a four-year private university in South Korea, and the second overall. Woosong University has approximately 7,000 students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate courses. It has the only college of railroad technology in South Korea, and features other college-level programs in information technology, health and welfare, hotel management and culinary arts. Its newest college, Solbridge International, will specialize in international affairs and business management.

Approximately 85 percent of the university courses are offered in English, and the school offers intensive training in Korean, Japanese and Chinese languages. It has more than six hundred international students from the United States, China, India, Vietnam and Japan. The university is in the process of expanding by establishing satellite campuses in other Asian countries.

"We're building an innovative school of business and international studies in Daejeon that will give students a real international experience not only in Korea but other parts of Asia," Endicott said.

"Another thing I look forward to is continuing my research and writing on the sentiment of the Korean youth toward America," he said. "This gives me an opportunity to dialog and understand their criticisms and objections of the U.S. first-hand."

Endicott has an important history in Asian affairs. In 1991, he founded the Limited Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone for Northeast Asia, which seeks to permanently remove nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula, Japan, Taiwan and Mongolia. It is also moving to remove tactical nuclear weapons from eastern Siberian Russia, northeast China and parts of Alaska. Both Endicott and the program were nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. He hopes that the future success of this project will serve as a model for creating nuclear-free zones elsewhere.

"There's no place in northeast Asia that's more critical for international security than the Korean peninsula," he said.

In addition to his non-proliferation work, Endicott also began the Korean Initiative while at Georgia Tech. The initiative works to offer courses at Tech in Korean affairs, security issues, language, political economies as well as guest lectures. The Korea Foundation has been instrumental in the success of this initiative.

"It's very difficult to leave Tech, but this is one of those opportunities that has to be taken in order to complete what I hope to do in my career," Endicott said.

Biographical Information:
Endicott received his Ph.D. in international affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, run jointly by Tufts and Harvard Universities in 1974. His areas of specialization include all aspects of Asian security studies, with special emphasis on the Korean Peninsula and Japan, American defense policy, professional military education, and nuclear proliferation.

His published books include, Japan's Nuclear Option, The Politics of East Asia, American Defense Policy, Regional Security Issues, and U.S. Foreign Policy: History, Process, and Policy,published in December 2004.

Endicott had a 31-year career in government, with 28 of those years as an officer in the United States Air Force and three as a member of the Senior Executive Service of the Department of Defense. He held posts that include: Director, International Affairs, Planning Directorate of Air Force Headquarters; Deputy Air Force Representative to the Military Staff Committee of the Security Council, the United Nations; Associate Dean of the National War College; and Director of the Institute for National Strategic Studies, serving both the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. His operational experience included assignments with Strategic Air Command Headquarters during the Cuban Missile Crisis; service with the 522nd Fighter Squadron, Vietnamese Air Force; and Chief of Target Plans, 5th Air Force during the Blue House Raid and Pueblo Crisis.

He currently serves as the Chairman of the Interim Secretariat of the Limited Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone for Northeast Asia (LNWFZ-NEA). Both Endicott and the Limited Nuclear Weapons Free Zone for Northeast Asia Program were nominated for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize. From April 2004 he served for two years as President of the Korea-Southeast U.S. Chamber of Commerce and in 2005 was appointed a visiting professor at Montesquieu University IV of Bordeaux, France. He was designated Honorary Consul for the State of Georgia by the Mongolian government in 2005. He is married to the former Mitsuyo Kobayashi of Tokyo, and they have two children, Charlene Noble and John, and four grandchildren.