Board of Advisors
Sarah Bunton, Ph.D.
Sarah received her Ph.D. in Educational Policy, Administration, and Leadership; her M.A. in Educational Psychology; and her B.A. in Psychology. She has over two decades of experience as a researcher, administrator, and college-level educator in educational and non-profit organizations centered on facilitating student, faculty, and organizational success. She is currently Research Director at a higher education non-profit where her research and teaching interests include educational equity, social change, leadership development, faculty engagement, and organizational capacity-building. She publishes and presents on these topics regularly. Sarah is committed to the mission of Sejong Academy and the important and unique niche in educational opportunities that it provides. Sarah previously served on the Board of Directors for the school.
Julie Chi
Julie was a founding member of Sejong Academy’s Board of Directors where she contributed her expertise leading up to and including the school’s opening in 2014. Julie continued to contribute to Sejong Academy by serving on the Board while her children were enrolled in the school. She has an extensive background in teaching English as a second or foreign language, is a lifetime learner of 4 languages herself, including Korean, and has numerous connections to the Twin Cities Korean community.
Jim Robinson, Ph.D.
Jim Robinson, Board Member, is a second/foreign language educator with almost forty years of experience, as a teacher, teacher educator, and program leader. His education began with degrees from the University of Kansas in History and East Asian Studies and continued with graduate degrees in Anthropology and Applied Linguistics at Stanford University. Jim began his Korean connections as a Peace Corps volunteer where he taught at Hapcheon Middle School, the Ulsan Board of Education and the Korean Educational Development Institute over a 4-year period of time. He also received a Fulbright dissertation grant and spent an additional year collecting data on self-fulfilling prophecies in a Korean elementary school. Currently, Jim is the TESL Director at St. Cloud State University where he directs TESL degree and licensure programs and teaches courses in teaching methodology, culture in the classroom, and ethnographic research methods for undergraduate and graduate students preparing to be ESL, foreign language, and Chinese immersion teachers for both K-12 and adult classrooms. Jim has written and published articles on intercultural communication within the classroom with special emphasis on crossing cultures from the US to Korea and has connected St. Cloud State to 3 Korean Universities with student and faculty exchanges as well as for dual degree programs. Jim lives mostly in St. Cloud with his wife, Kyoungae. One of their two adult children lives in Seoul, Korea and the other in St. Cloud.
Scott Tryggeseth
Scott served as a founding school board member of Sejong Academy. Since 1992, Scott has enjoyed a variety of professional experiences that have allowed him to work with all types of students. He worked as a Behavior Specialist in a day treatment program, a juvenile counselor for Operation De Novo in Minneapolis and as a 5th and 6th grade teacher in the St. Paul Public schools. In addition, Scott has served as an elementary school principal in St. Paul Public Schools, in the Columbia Heights Public School system and as an interim principal in the Pine Island Public schools. Scott's formal education has taken place at three different levels: an undergraduate degree from St. Cloud State University with an emphasis in Applied Psychology; a Master’s degree from the University of St. Thomas with an emphasis in Elementary education; and finally, a K- 12 Administration degree/license from the University of St. Mary’s of Minnesota. Scott is also formally certified to facilitate Responsive Classroom® week-long trainings to teachers and has used the Responsive Classroom approach to teaching as a classroom teacher and principal for twelve years. Regardless of his role with students and families, Scott is deeply passionate about providing a world-class education for the young people he is so grateful to work with daily. He currently serves as ALC Principal in the Zumbro Education District in Byron Minnesota.
Dr. Dafna Zur
Dr. Dafna Zur is an Associate Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Stanford University where she teaches courses on Korean literature, cinema, and popular culture. Her book, Figuring Korean Futures: Children’s Literature in Modern Korea (Stanford University Press, 2017), traces the investments and aspirations made possible by children’s literature in colonial and postcolonial Korea. She is working on a new project on science and literature in Cold War North and South Korea. She has published articles on North Korean popular science and science fiction, North Korean translations, the Korean War in North and South Korean children’s literature, childhood in cinema, and Korean popular culture. Her translations of Korean fiction have appeared in wordwithoutborders.org, The Columbia Anthology of Modern Korean Short Stories, and the Asia Literary Review.
Dr. Zur is the director of the immersion camp known as The Korean Language Village (http://www.concordialanguagevillages.org/youth-languages/korean-language-village). Under her leadership, the program has grown past its current capacity, and she is looking forward to moving to the program’s permanent Korean home on Turtle River Lake near Bemidji.