Jerry Oberst ’77, front left, associate director of admissions at Oswego, poses with more than three dozen first-year South Korean college students among the 53 eligible accepted, contingent on success this year, for admission to Oswego for their final three years of undergraduate study. Oswego was also represented by Peace Li of the Office of International Education and Programs.

Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul held ceremonies in February for 200 first-year students potentially destined to study for three more years at seven SUNY colleges. Of those, 53 students have been admitted, contingent on success this year, to spend their final three years at Oswego, starting in spring 2013.

“Partnerships such as this one, designed to facilitate degree-seeking transfer students from outside the United States on 1-plus-3 (years) and 2-plus-2 programs, are gaining traction,” said Joshua McKeown, director of international education and programs. “We have multiple agreements, starting with China and Korea, and the HUFS program is the first to bear fruit in such a substantial way.”

Jerry Oberst ’77, associate director of admissions, represented SUNY Oswego at ceremonies in Seoul to kick off the series of agreements between Hankuk and SUNY colleges.

SUNY last June announced plans to increase international enrollment by 14,000 students over the next five years, to approximately 32,000 across all 64 campuses.

Tom Walpole ’79 has been named senior vice president, global manufacturing excellence, and president, Novelis Asia.

The president of Novelis Asia since 2007, Walpole assumed additional responsibilities to increase the speed at which the company integrates its global manufacturing operations through common standards, policies and practices.

He will also oversee execution on the company’s overall improvement goals for its manufacturing assets over the next three to five years. In addition, he will be responsible for helping the company achieve world-class employee health and safety performance and for implementing global standards for all new major capital investments.

Walpole has more than 30 years of aluminum industry experience. Prior to the Novelis spin-off from Alcan Inc. in 2005, he held a number of international positions with Alcan including vice president of sales and marketing for the rolled products operations in Korea and president of the lithographic, can and painted products business in Europe.

In addition to his accounting degree from Oswego, he holds an MBA from Case Western Reserve University.

He resides in Seoul, Korea.