KWANG SUP YUM 염광섭

(1895-1981)

Graduation year: 1923 (M.A.), 1930 (Ph.D.)

Major: Religion, Philosophy, Psychology

Thesis: Baptism in the Letters of Paul (M.A. 1923)

An Experimental Test of the Law of Assimilation (Ph.D. 1930)

Work & Experience

• Student, Meridian College (1914-?)
• B.A., Asbury College (1919)
• B.D., Emory University (1922)
• M.A., University of Chicago, Divinity School (1923)
• Ph.D. in Psychology, University of Chicago (1930)
• President, Korean Student Federation of North America (1923-1925)
• Member, The Korean Club (1925-1926)
• Editorial board, The Rocky (1931)
• Head of University of Chicago Psychology Library (1922-1943)
• First Korean Faculty Member of University of Chicago (1943-1945, Research Associate, Psychiatric)
• Advisor to US Military Government in Korea (1946-1949)
• Consultant to Korean Ministry of Education (1947-1949)
• Chair of the Department of Psychology, Seoul National University (1947-1949)
• Lecturer, Soongsil University (1947-1949)

Kwang Sup Yum was born in Seoul, 1895. His family lineage traces back to Paju, and he is the second cousin of Yŏm Sang-sŏp, the modern fiction writer best known for the novel Samdae (Three Generations, 1932) and short story “P’yobonsil ŭi ch’ŏnggaeguri” (“Tree Frog in the Specimen Room,” 1921). Kwang Sup Yum graduated from Posŏng Middle School and Chŏngnisa (a private school for mathematics) and in 1914, with assistance from Methodist missionaries, he began pursuing a higher education in the United States. Like Yum, many of the early study-abroad students came to the United States with assistance from American missionaries, and as such, most majored in theology and medicine. Kwang Sup Yum earned a B.A. from Asbury College in 1919 and a B.D. from Emory University in 1922 before arriving at the University of Chicago. After receiving an M.A. from the Divinity School in 1923, Kwang Sup Yum decided to continue his studies at the University, changing his major to Psychology in which he would earn a Ph.D. in 1930.

While studying at the University of Chicago, Kwang Sup Yum also participated in a number of extracurricular organizations to facilitate information exchange and promote friendship between international students. He served as the President of the Korean Student Federation of North America (1923-1924), a member of the University of Chicago’s Korean Club (1925-1926), and the Korean Student Secretary of the Friendly Relations Committee (1923). The Korean Student Federation of North America took advantage of summer vacations by hosting annual banquets each June at which members would present on and discuss the present situation and current affairs issues. The Federation published an English-language monthly, The Korean Student Bulletin from 1922 to 1941 as well as an official Korean-language mouthpiece The Rocky (Urak’i) from 1925-1936. The First Annual Convention of the Korean Student Federation of North America was held at the University of Chicago in 1923. Speakers included University of Chicago President Ernest DeWitt Burton, Professor William Darnal MacClintock, and Dr. Philip Jaisohn, with more than twenty American guests in attendance alongside many more international students who had gathered in Chicago from throughout the country. At the First Convention of 1923, Kwang Sup Yum was elected President of the Federation, and he would go on to lead the organization for two years, all the while remaining an active editorial-board member and contributing writer for The Rocky.

Kwang Sup Yum was also a founding member of the Korean Methodist Church of Chicago, which began as a prayer group in 1922 before its official establishment in 1923. At the time, Kwang Sup Yum was elected as preacher alongside Se Woon Chang while Kim Ch’ang-jun and Hui Yum Cho served in the Church ministry. While conducting active mission work both within and beyond Chicago, Yum was elected Director of the Korean Methodist Church of Chicago in 1930 and would successfully lead efforts to ensure the Church had a chapel.

Soon after receiving his Ph.D. in psychology, Kwang Sup Yum began working as the Head of the University’s Psychology Library and in 1943, he became the first Korean to join the faculty of the University of Chicago, serving as Psychiatric Research Associate. From 1947 to 1949, Kwang Sup Yum returned to Korea, where he was placed by the US Department of State in the role of advisor to the US Military Government in Korea. News of Yum’s homecoming can be found in articles published both in the Korean newspaper Tonga ilbo and the University of Chicago Magazine. Kwang Sup Yum would go on to serve as an advisor to the Ministry of Education and a Professor of Psychology at Seoul National University, where he lectured in English on the “mathematical principles of mental testing.”

Kwang Sup Yum then returned to the United States with his wife Louise Grossnickle (Korean name, Im Yŏng-ŭn) and son Kwang Sup Yum II. In 1981 he passed away at the age of 81 while residing in the Chicago area.