Irvine City Mayor Kang Suk-hee, the first Korean-American mayor of a major U.S. city, will receive an honorary doctoral degree in business management from Dongseo University.

The Busan-based school said that the degree recognizes Kang’s devotion to the economic growth and educational development of Irvine City in California as well as his achievements in raising the status of Korean-Americans.

Born in Seoul in 1952, Kang graduated from the agricultural economics department of Korea University in Seoul in 1977, emigrated to the U.S. in the same year, where he began his professional career at Circuit City Store sales and customer service. He became Irvine’s first non-white mayor in 2008 and was re-elected last year.

Kang has been a visiting professor of Dongseo University since 2007. He was to give a special lecture on leadership in an era of globalization on receiving his honorary degree.

(swchun@heraldcorp.com)