Stony Brook University SUNY Korea

  Last Friday, the State University of New York, Korea (Stony Brook University and Fashion Institute of Technology) held its Fall 2023 Convocation Ceremony in Songdo, Incheon. A total of 231 new students took part in this ceremony. Welcoming remarks and congratulatory speeches were given by SUNY Korea President Arthur H. Lee, Executive Director of SUNY Korea Dr. Imin Kao, and FIT Professor and Chair of Fashion Business Management Vincent Quan. The Convocation Ceremony also included an Oath presented by two selected freshmen students, the awarding of scholarships, and the badge ceremony. President Lee welcomed students from 18 countries, including 3 new countries for SUNY Korea – Mauritius, Morocco, and Peru – and added: “Dream big enough to change the world and don’t be afraid of failure.” In addition, Professor Quan reminded the new students that FIT ranked first globally in 2023 amongst fashion schools, and encouraged students who entered this world-renowned program to be proud of themselves. In particular, he advised students to find a balance in their lives, saying, “During your college life it is important to focus on your studies; however, the most important thing is health, and as important as acquiring knowledge are various extra curricula activities to develop your capabilities.” The new students from the 6 majors at Stony Brook – Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Business Management, Computer Science, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Technology & Society – and the 2 majors at FIT – Fashion Design and Fashion Business Management – will begin their first classes as university students on Monday, August 28, 2023.    

K-Fashion Conundrum Hallyu is alive and well. The global phenomena of K-Beauty, K-Brand Ambassadors, K-Cars, K- Drama, K-Electronics, and K-Pop, amongst other sectors, have been sweeping the world. Is Korean culture of the present a unique entity or are there parallels from Japan of the past? Is it fathomable that K-Beauty was preceded by J-Beauty, K-Cars preceded by J-Cars, K-Electronics preceded by J-Electronics, and others? Not long ago, Japanese brands similarly swept the globe with names such as Sony and Panasonic dominating the television industry. Today, these brands have been usurped by LG and Samsung. In December 1997, Toyota introduced the first hybrid, gas-electric vehicle called the Prius. This was over a quarter of a century ago. However, instead of taking the Prius hybrid to the next level, full electric, the Japanese manufacturer rested on its laurels paving the way for numerous competitors such as Tesla to develop and launch fully electric vehicles. A recent visit to Washington DC’s Union Market revealed an interesting yet unscientific observation. The line of cars parked along one row of the parking lot had more Hyundais than Hondas. More importantly, has K-Fashion achieved equal or greater global success than the aforementioned sectors riding the Korean wave? This depends on the definition of K-Fashion. If K-Fashion includes K-Pop celebrities wearing and endorsing fashion goods, then the answer is certainly “Yes.” On the other hand, if K-Fashion is defined by the global recognition of Korean fashion designers as leaders in the fashion world, then the answer may be quite different. It takes time to take a deeper dive into K-Fashion. Specifically, there are two distinctions which need to be made. For Korean fashion brands, there are brands which bear the name of the designer and there are brands which do not bear the names of the designers. For the former, think of brands such as Hyein Seo and Wooyoungmi versus brands such as Andersson Bell and Gentle Monster for the latter. The history of J-Fashion goes back more than fifty years. If challenged to name the top three to five global Japanese fashion designers and their eponymous labels, who would they be? If asked to name the same number of Japanese fashion brands but not bearing the designers’ name, who would they be? Now, replicate these questions for Korean designers and brands. Perhaps, one or two Korean designers or brands come to mind but what about the rest? The goal of any nation is to increase Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is the total market value of all the goods and services produced by a country within a specified period. Korea has been masterful across many sectors in increasing its GDP through the careful planning and marketing of numerous Korean brands to the world. However, one could argue that K-Fashion is an exception to the trend. Looking back at the history of Japanese fashion, there are lessons to be learned and perhaps “reinvented” from investments by Japanese fashion designers beginning in the early 1970s. According to Yuniya Kawamura, Professor of Sociology at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York and author of The Japanese Revolution in Paris Fashion, and Fashion-ology: Fashion Studies in the Postmodern Digital Era, one of the key factors was that “Japanese designers went to Paris and were legitimated by French fashion professions, such as editors, critics, publicists, and buyers, who were the gatekeepers of fashion prior to the invention of the Internet. They became members of the French fashion federation that controlled Paris Fashion Week every season. Kenzo Takada who created his own brand in 1970 in Paris and was a pioneer and forerunner for other Japanese designers.” According to Dr. Kawamura, Japanese fashion designers who began the J-Fashion revolution such as Kenzo Takada, Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, and Rei Kawakubo showed their first collections in Paris from the early 1970's to early 1980's. In retrospect, these global brands are still relevant nearly fifty years later. Today, the physical landscape of fashion has been transformed by digital technologies such as 3D design software, artificial intelligence, and social networking services (SNS). What will it take for Korean fashion designers to achieve similar global success? The answers may lie in looking back at the history of Japanese fashion designers along with an intimate knowledge of today’s technologies using social media to grow brand recognition and sales. In a recent conversation with the chief designer of Korean fashion brand MMAM (Maison Museum of Modern Art), Ms. Hyun Park states that her brand appeared five consecutive times at Seoul Fashion Week to build brand recognition. MMAM along with local brands CHARM’S and KIMMY.J were recently awarded the opportunity to participate in New York Fashion Week (NYFW) under the 2023 Concept Korea New York program sponsored by the Seoul City Government. While programs sponsored by the government sector such as Concept Korea and Fashion Code have contributed to the exposure of Korean fashion labels, is it enough to reach the level of success as Japanese designers have achieved? Probably not. Building a globally recognized brand will require substantial investments by both the public and private sectors to support local brands. Juun.J would be an example. Participation in a few of the major Fashion Weeks around the world is also a must. Is settling down in Paris a requirement too? It probably would not hurt to take a page from Kenzo or his peers. In the meantime, “Whassup” Korean Fashion Designers? Do we have all the pieces in place to truly go global? As a footnote, the sequencing of the upcoming Spring/Summer (SS24) Fashion Week schedule commences in early September with New York followed by London, Milan, and culminating in Paris. This leads to another question. How does a city like Seoul become the fifth fashion capital of the world?  Click here to read the article in Korean  

Delphine Horvath, assistant professor, Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing, teamed up with alumna Lindsay Karchin six years ago to fill a critical educational gap the two saw in the beauty industry. The textbook that resulted from that collaboration, Cosmetics Marketing: Strategy and Innovation in the Beauty Industry, was published by Bloomsbury in July, and is making its way into curricula nationwide. The first marketing textbook devoted solely to the beauty industry, it is available through most major book retailers including Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The book provides thought-provoking, industry-led exercises and case studies to demonstrate the role of aesthetics, authentic communication, emerging technologies, cultural trends, and the measurement of marketing efforts. There are also practical, beautifully illustrated resources for entering the field, exercises for boosting creativity, preparations for interviews, as well as an overview of the beauty products and theory used by makeup artists and product developers. Click here to read the original article.

  For thousands of years, the Yamuna River has been considered one of the most sacred bodies of water in Vedic (ancient Hinduism) literature and, along with the Ganges, has played a significant role in modern India’s political history, religious culture, and economy. Increasingly, pollution has endangered the Yamuna, making it difficult for residents to use the river for personal hygiene, and challenging its reputation as a source of spiritual rejuvenation. In the exhibition, Chasing a Dying River: Ghat 24 Yamuna, Delhi, India, Praveen K. Chaudhry, professor of Social Sciences, presents a collection of large-scale color photographs that document the humanitarian and social crisis currently visible along the shores of the Yamuna.  Click here to read the original article.  

American Heart Association again provides national recognition to Stony Brook University Hospital and Stony Brook Southampton Hospital Stony Brook Medicine (SBM) has once again been recognized by the American Heart Association for its commitment to delivering high-quality patient care across cardiovascular and stroke focus areas. This year marks the 13th consecutive year for Stony Brook University Hospital (SBUH) (2010-2023) and the 10th consecutive year for Stony Brook Southampton Hospital (SBSH) (2014-2023) to receive the Association’s Get With The Guidelines® – Stroke Gold Plus achievement award. For the fifth consecutive year, SBUH received the Get With The Guidelines® – Heart Failure Gold Plus quality achievement award.  Click here to read the original article.

The IGC Library recently created a Hall of Fame for the notable book donors from the IGC community. The Hall of Fame recognizes people who have donated books to the IGC Library. Two donors from the SUNY Korea community has their appreciation plaques displayed: Honorary President Dr. Myung Oh and Technology & Society Professor James Larson. “I personally dream about making Dr Myung Oh’s donation, some of my donations, and the IGC Library into an Incheon Global Campus Policy Museum,” said Professor James Larson. Professor Larson has published a number of books during his career and has co-authored with Dr. Myung Oh Digital Development in Korea: Building an Information Society, published in 2011. To watch his interview, click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a1uXIUaHRI            

  Daniel Canals, PhD, a research assistant professor at the Stony Brook Cancer Center, has received a grant from the Long Island League to Abolish Cancer (LILAC) for the purchase of two cutting-edge instruments that enable him and colleagues to better understand how lipids are regulated in cancer, and in turn, the many functions that lipids perform in cancer cells. The instruments — the Scilogex Spectrophotometer and Benchmark Scientific BV1010, BenchMixer (Vortexer) — work together to measure ceramide molecules on the plasma membranes of both normal cells and cancerous cells, allowing researchers to gain a deeper insight into the mechanisms of cancer by comparing the normal cells to the cancerous ones. Click here to read the original article.

In the early decades of the 20th century, FIT founder and president Max Meyer (1876–1953), then a buyer for a major New York City cloak and suit manufacturer, commissioned thousands of drawings of French couture designs to be licensed for production in the U.S.. A new show in FIT’s Art and Design Gallery, Unconventional Then, Now, & Always: A Helix of FIT Influence from Max Meyer to Daria Dorosh, juxtaposes some of these watercolor and ink images from houses such as Chanel, Poiret, and Lanvin with comparable examples of actual garments from the study collection of FIT’s graduate program in Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice.  Click here to read the original article.  

Elena Romero, assistant chair, Marketing Communications, has received her first New York Emmy nomination for Best Public Affairs Program (Series) as part of the LATiNAS team at CUNY TV. The monthly magazine-style news show showcases Latinas from all walks of life. She’s been a  correspondent and producer with the show since its inception in 2019. Romero also recently won her third Telly—a Silver Award, the organization’s highest achievement—for “LATiNAS: Best of Season 3″ in the Television: Diversity and Inclusion category. She’s won in previous years for her work on LATiNAS for a profile of a Latinx Muslim family in season one and for an entire season of on-air reporting done during the pandemic. Click here to read the original article.

  Fashion Design student Tessa Kent ’23 got over 550,000 hits for an augmented reality filter she created on Snapchat. The filter allows Snapchat users to “wear” two garments from her thesis collection, “Sentimental Fool,” which is embroidered with quotes from her great-great-grandmother’s memoir. Check out this one-minute video below or on FIT’s Vimeo channel to see how she did it. Click here to read the original article.

  As new platforms and applications of artificial intelligence (AI) become available, businesses must adapt to both harness their powerful capabilities and keep pace with competitors. From marketing to sales to customer experience, business users can leverage highly personalized messaging when communicating with both existing and potential customers. But it’s not without its concerns — increased misinformation campaigns, inaccurate data, biases, and cybersecurity risks have forced the business community to give AI a second, harder look. "AI for Business Optimization,” a virtual panel discussion hosted by the Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology (CEWIT) at Stony Brook University, had a diverse group of experts survey the accelerating AI landscape. Christine Gilbert, assistant professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (SoMAS), the School of Communication and Journalism and the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, moderated the discussion. Click here to read the original article.

Stony Brook University Hospital (SBUH) has been recognized by Becker’s Hospital Review as one of the 90 exceptional institutions nationwide included on the 2023 “Great Hospitals in America” list. Becker’s celebrates U.S. hospitals recognized for their commitment to clinical excellence, patient safety, innovation, research and education, and patient satisfaction. SBUH is the only hospital in Suffolk County featured and one of only two on Long Island to make the list. Click here to read the original article.

  T. Simeon Ananou has been named Stony Brook University’s Vice President for the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) and Chief Information Officer (CIO), effective August 14, 2023. The announcement was made July 7 by Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration Jed Shivers. Ananou emerged from a highly competitive pool of candidates after an extensive national search. "With over 20 years of IT leadership at several higher education institutions, Dr. Ananou has remained passionate throughout his career about the role that Information Technology has in transforming education, research and learning for students,” Shiver said. “He has also served as an advocate and champion for building IT teams and environments that are responsive, efficient, and focused on customer service to support the changing needs of faculty, staff and students, University-wide.” Click here to read the original article.

  Beginning this fall, the Stony Brook School of Communication and Journalism (SoCJ) will offer a new academic program: a bachelor of arts in communication. The program will offer undergraduate students a chance to explore and understand how communication shapes culture and community, with a particular emphasis on how communication impacts systemic inequalities, discrimination and injustice. Click here to read the original article.

  SUNY Korea Research and Business Foundation (R&BF) made a Memorandum of Understanding agreement with Seoul Fashion Hub Bae Um Tteul (배움뜰) on Wednesday, July 5th, 2023. The areas of cooperation include 1.) Comprehensive cooperative activities for education support.  2.) Network establishment and experience sharing for employment support. 3.) Joint marketing cooperation for the development and revitalization of local communities. Both parties will cooperate with each other to promote the development of both organizations for collaboration in vitalizing education services and employment support through information exchange, such as new knowledge and technology related to fashion.