Paul Y. Kim

As someone who teaches about the psychological pitfalls of racial colorblindness, it’s been jolting to see this ideology being touted as an ideal way of relating to one another. For example, President Trump has repeatedly used this term, including during his inauguration speech. Recently, against the backdrop of the current public sentiments about racial colorblindness,…

In my family, like many Korean American families, we regularly communicate using Konglish (Korean + English). We rely on Konglish when something complicated or multilayered can be better expressed using a combination of Korean and English words. The other day, during an evening walk with my spouse, I said the following about two students who…

Editor’s Note: This is Part 2 of a dual reflection on The War and Women’s Human Rights Museum (aka “Comfort Women Memorial”) by Eimi Ichimura, a Ph.D. student, and Paul Kim, a professor of psychology at Seattle Pacific University.  Emi identifies as Japanese American and Paul identifies as Korean American. They disclose this information upfront so…

The War and Women’s Human Rights Museum (aka “Comfort Women Memorial”) in South Korea is a powerful place of remembrance. Specifically, in a small building (it’s literally the size of a large American house) located near the tourist hotspot of the Hongdae neighborhood, the museum is filled with painful stories of women who were forced…

As a psychologist trained in the United States, I tend to view the expression of emotions as a good thing. So, the flipside of the expression of emotion – restraint of feelings, or emotional self-control – is sometimes viewed as an unhealthy practice, or at least a corollary of unfavorable health and mental health outcomes.…

When I was a doctoral student, one mentor secretly sent their friend (another professor) to my poster at a professional conference to ask the most difficult methodological and statistical questions about my research content. I think my mentor viewed this as an initiation of some kind to the academic presentation experience. Suffice it to say,…

Teachers, have you ever cried in front of your students? With your students? I have not. I have come close a few times. When I stood in front of my class shortly after a campus shooting, I felt the heaviness of the collectively traumatic experience. When I asked my students to join me in prayer…

It feels like students have stopped coming to my office hours. Or at least, the number of office hour appointments on my calendar has slowed to a trickle. What might explain the underutilization of office hours? I chalk it up to multiple factors. It could be that the articulated benefits of meeting with professors outside…

Even though the classroom space is necessarily different from a counseling one, it strikes me that given the frequency and the duration of my interactions with students, they are also likely to internalize certain things that I say or do in the classroom; that they “hear” my voice throughout the academic term, and maybe even…

In recent days, I have found myself asking these rhetorical questions about my foray into public-facing scholarship. I have learned that whenever I engage in these big-picture, existential questions, I can usually point to some kind of internal conflict or dissonance.

Over my thirteen years in Christian higher education as faculty, I have written about (and this is a conservative estimate) a dozen essays reflecting on my Christian faith and how it shapes my personal and professional life. In addition, I have served on numerous committees reading such essays crafted by job candidates and colleagues seeking…

For what seemed like hours, I stared in shock at the words on my computer screen. In a course feedback comment, a student had written, using a racial slur, that I was not qualified to teach the course because of my Asian identity. There was also the time that a student openly mocked Asian cultures…

1981. I stared at this collection of digits for a few moments, letting the gravity of the moment sink in. This was the birth year that a student listed for her parents on a cultural genogram project; it is also the year that I was born. Throughout the years that I have assigned this project…

Editor's note: Due to a technical problem, our posts scheduled for the past two days were not distributed by e-mail. We apologize. This post was originally scheduled for this past Tuesday.  PLG What does Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month look like on your campus? I speculate that, if celebrated, it includes events…

Editor’s note: This blog is part II of a two-part series based on questions Professor Kim received from his two daughters, Alyssa (7th grade) and Abigail (5th grade), after taking them to his class one day. For Part I see here. Abigail: Do you like your students? Do they like you? Yes, Abigail, I do…

For many faculty with school-age children at home, it is a common dilemma that inevitably comes around a couple of times a year: our children’s school vacation dates (e.g., spring break) rarely align with ours. In the grand scheme of things that truly trouble our world, this is not a big source of angst; but…

I recently learned about the term, “goblin mode.”I would like to thank Professor David Tizzard for introducing the terms goblin mode and godsaeng to me. If you are also hearing this phrase for the first time, it refers to “a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way…

For the past few years, my family has implemented the practice of selecting a Biblical passage to be the “family verse/passage” for the calendar year. For 2023, we have chosen a well-known verse in Psalm 19:14 (ESV): “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O…

Three weeks ago, my mother lost consciousness following a medical emergency, and she remains in a coma. Because she is hospitalized in South Korea, I rushed from Seattle to Seoul to be with my family during this time. Among the difficulties we as a family are wrestling with, the cruelty of the COVID-19 pandemic that…

Today I showed my students how to do laundry. More precisely, I texted them tips on using the laundry room at our hotel during our South Korea study abroad program, as the instructions in the coin laundry room were mostly written in Korean. Readers of this blog might recall my previous blog piece longing to…