A Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges to Promote Asian Studies
ASIANetwork
Freeman Foundation
College-in-Asia Summer Institutes
for On-Site Study in Asia, 1998-2004
Program Overview:
The best way to begin to understand Asia is to spend some time in the region, and an effective way to expand an Asian Studies program is to sponsor an on-site program in Asia. One of the most successful overseas terms for students has been the program offered by Augustana College since 1974. Under this arrangement about seventy-five students spend their entire fall term studying in Japan, China Mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Since this program is intended to be an integral part of a liberal arts education, students are drawn from many disciplines. They need not have competence in an Asian language nor have an Asian discipline focus; they simply need to have a desire to learn more about a region that has a unique and lengthy history and that will become increasingly important in the coming century.
The College-in-Asia Summer Institutes, with generous funding by the Freeman Foundation, provided training for 25 colleges and universities to establish such liberal arts oriented on-site study programs in Asia during the summers of 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2004.
The following colleges and universities participated in the first three institutes operated during the summer of 1998, 1999 and 2000: Allegheny College, Alverno College, Austin College, Brenau University, Eckerd College, Elms College, Fairfield University, Hiram College, John Carroll University, Ricks College, St. Olaf College, Southern Methodist University, Spelman College, Washington and Lee University, and William Woods University. During the second cycle of funding, ten additional colleges/universities were introduced to a successful model of Term-in-Asia program in the summer of 2004: Baldwin-Wallace College, Barat College of DePaul University, Drury University, Carthage College, Coe College, Goucher College, Hamline College, University of Redlands, University of Washington at Tacoma, and Viterbo College. Under the direction of Norman Moline and associate direction of Jim Winship (both Augustana College), a faculty member and an administrator from these colleges and universities travelled for three weeks through Japan, Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China to study how to administer and run in-house term-in-Asia programs. Several of these schools already have developed new and expanded programs, using ideas and contacts gained from the Institute.