Hurley College of Science and Mathematics Welcomes New Faculty

OBU is pleased to announce the addition of Dr. Hyunju Ban as associate professor of mathematics in the James E. Hurley College of Science and Mathematics.

Ban earned both a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Mathematics from Chonnam National University in Gwangju, South Korea. He then earned a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Florida Atlantic University. Before joining the OBU faculty, he served as an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Malone University in Canton, Ohio. He also served as a visiting assistant professor in the Mathematics Department at The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. He served as a postdoctoral research fellow at both Florida Atlantic University and Vanderbilt University. He previously was a teaching assistant at Chonnam National University and Florida Atlantic.

Dr. Debbie Bosch, dean of the James E. Hurley College of Science and Mathematics, is pleased to have Ban join the faculty. "We are thrilled to have Dr. Ban join us in the Hurley College," she said. "His years of teaching experience plus his expertise in numerical analysis rounds out the needs within the department."

She is also excited for students to learn from Dr. Ban's experiences abroad. "Within the Hurley College, we now have faculty members who bring cultural heritage from such diverse regions of the globe as Taiwan, Cameroon, India, the Philippines and now South Korea with Dr. Ban, sharing this cultural diversity not only among the laboratory sciences but now also with the mathematical sciences."

Another thing stood out to Bosch during the interview process. "True to his discipline, he has developed both a written and visual explanation of how 'all learning must converge to God's truth in our Christian liberal arts education.'" Ban developed his own "Philosophy of Christian Higher Education," including God's truth, knowledge of God through Christ, knowing ourselves and serving our neighbors. He represents this through a chart utilizing the three dimensional x, y and z axes, a mathematical concept he employs to explain the power of faith in higher education.