| Chai-Shin Yu | |||||||||||
| Birth Date: | 11 April 1932 | ||||||||||
| Birth Place: | Ch'aho, Korea, Empire of Japan | ||||||||||
| Death Place: | Toronto, Ontario, Canada | ||||||||||
| Nationality: | Canadian | ||||||||||
| Occupation: | Academic, professor, pastor | ||||||||||
| Education: | Hartford Seminary Foundation | ||||||||||
| Alma Mater: | McMaster University | ||||||||||
| Spouse: | Ena Yu | ||||||||||
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Chai-Shin Yu (April 11, 1932 – April 24, 2023) was a Korean-Canadian academic and a distinguished professor of Korean studies at the University of Toronto. Yu helped establish Korean Studies at U of T, being the one of the first people to teach a Korean studies course at a Canadian university. Before teaching Korean studies, he was a pastor for the local Korean community at the Korean Metro United Church.
Chai-Shin Yu was born on April 11, 1932, in Ch'aho, Korea during the Japanese colonial period.[2] In 1948, Yu fled from the Soviet-occupied North Korea to South Korea to escape religious persecution and further his studies. In 1964, he immigrated from South Korea to the United States to study theology.[3] He received a Master of Arts degree from Hartford Seminary Foundation in 1967, and then received a Master of Arts in religion in 1969 from McMaster University[4] for his graduate thesis, A Critical Examintion of Suzuki's Understanding of Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism.[5] In 1970, Yu was ordained as a minister of the United Church of Canada.[6] In 1973, Yu was awarded his PhD in Religious Sciences for his PhD thesis, A Comparative Study of the Founder's Authority, the Community, and the Discipline in Early Buddhism and in Early Christianity.[7] He would also be inducted as the pastor of the Korean Metro United Church in the same year.[8]
In 1977, Chai-Shin Yu was appointed as a visiting part-time assistant professor at the University of Toronto to teach EAS 270: Introduction to Korean Studies, which would become the first course in the Korean studies program.[9] [10] Yu would continue to add more courses to the Korean studies program during his tenure at U of T.[11] On July 1, 1982, Yu would be promoted to associate professor.[12] On June 19, 1997, for his contributions to founding the Korean studies program, U of T recognized Yu as a distinguished professor of Korean studies.[13] Yu was given the Seongnyu Medal of the Order of Civil Merit by the South Korean government in 2006.[14] On March 7, 2017, Yu was given the KBS Global Korean Award for contribution in helping promote Korean studies in Canada.[15]
On April 24, 2023, Chai-Shin Yu died of chronic illness in Toronto.[16]