History
Ewha Womans University traces its roots back to Mary F. Scranton's Ihwa Hakdang (also Ewha Hakdang; 이화학당 梨花學堂) mission school for girls, which opened with only one student on May 31, 1886 (Lee, 2001). The name, which means “Pear blossom academy”, was bestowed by the Emperor Gojong the following year. The school began to provide college courses in 1910, and professional courses for women in 1925. Immediately following liberation of Korea on August 15, 1945, the college received government permission to become a university. It was the first South Korean university to be officially organized.
Ewha is now responsible for many firsts in Korean history: Korea's first female doctor, Esther Park; its first woman to get a doctoral degree, Helen Kim (who later became the university's first Korean president); the first female Korean lawyer, Lee Tai-young; the first female justice on the Constitutional Court, Jeon Hyo-sook, and the first female prime minister, Han Myeong-sook, were all Ewha graduates. The "firsts" is in part due to the fact that many Korean women in older generations were discouraged from attending co-ed universities in Korea. Ewha's motto is "Frontier Ewha."
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