Dr. Belle Boone Beard of Sweet Briar College arrives as a visiting scholar at Seoul National University and Seoul Women’s University, becoming the first American Fulbright grantee to Korea. The photo shows the American Fulbright scholars and their families who arrived in Korea during the 1963-1964 academic year.
With the reenactment of the Fulbright agreement in the wake of the Korean War, the U.S. Educational Commission in Korea (USEC/K) is established with its headquarters inside the cultural affairs office of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul.
In accordance with the Fulbright Act signed by President Truman in 1946, a unified Korea becomes one of the first twenty countries in the world to establish a Fulbright agreement for the financing of educational exchange with the United States, with funding initially provided almost solely by the U.S. government.
