ASIANetwork Service Learning and Environment in Asia Program

Program Overview

The Henry Luce Foundation is generously supporting the ASIANetwork Service Learning and the Environment in Asia Program (ANSLEAP) for a two-year exploratory period (2011-2013) under the Luce Initiative on Asian Studies and the Environment (LIASE) program.  The grant is designed to broaden undergraduate teaching and learning about the environment and sustainable development in Asia by creating opportunities for liberal arts colleges to establish and maintain environmental studies research and learning in Asia.  ANSLEAP will undertake specific activities designed to meet the following objectives:

    1. Introduce environmental studies faculty (especially natural science faculty) to Asia in order to develop the facility to do collaborative environmental work in Asia, thus:

      There will be a panel presentation focused on environmental issues in Asia on Sunday morning, April 1, 2012 at the ASIANetwork Conference in Portland, OR. We encourage colleagues in environmental studies, especially natural scientists, to attend the panel.

    2. Increase and strengthen the capacity of our members to engage in community-based service learning pedagogies in Asia, thus:

      At the Spring 2013 ASIANetwork Conference, AN will conduct a pre-conference workshop for faculty interested in developing the expertise to establish service-learning programs focused on Asia and the environment. Watch for announcements in Fall 2012.

    3. Run pilot environmental studies programs in Asia designed to facilitate collaborative service learning for Asian and American students examining global and local environmental issues.

ANSLEAP Pilot Programs

There will be two pilot programs in summer 2012 conducted in collaboration with the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia (UB) schools. In these pilot programs, the AN-UB partner teams will be joining in fieldbased projects using service learning pedagogies. One partnership will be with a UB school in China and one partnership will be with a UB school in South or Southeast Asia. We invite AN colleagues with experience conducting service-learning programs to develop and propose a plan for a field-based pilot project on environmental issues in China, South Asia, or Southeast Asia in partnership with a UB team.

Proposal must be submitted by AN team, itself consisting of five members: one Asianist and one natural scientist and three students from the same educational institution. If the Asianist is also a natural scientist, four students may be included in the team. Although each team is encouraged to be from one educational institution, for this round, teams may propose including a natural scientist from another AN member school if necessary.

Please contact Dr. Jack Harris (ansleap [at] asianetwork.org) to obtain UB faculty contact information that will allow AN proposers to explore the possibility of working on a collaborative proposal. The goal will be for the faculty-student team in the US to partner with a faculty-student team at a UB school in Asia to work on project designed to facilitate service-learning and research on critical environmental issues in that region of Asia.

Grant amount: $20,000 per partnership team. Upon submission of final reports, the AN faculty leaders will receive $1,500 stipend each. The faculty stipend will be forfeited if all required reports are not received by the due date. Stipend for UB faculty partner should be part of the $20,000 total budget. All unused grant money should be returned to ASIANetwork.

Criteria for selection will include:

Application deadline: January 16, 2012
Notification of selected teams: February 1, 2012

Application details will soon be available from this page. All application packets must be sent electronically to ANSLEAP [at] asianetwork.org by January 16, 2012.

Grant Condition:

The home institutions of the selected teams must assume the following responsibilities:

    1. Administer the funds allocated by the grant. ASIANetwork will send grant money to the institution, and then its business office should disburse the money to the faculty and the students in accordance with its internal procedures. This grant does not pay an administrative fee to the home institution for this service.
    2. Provide financial support for the faculty participant to attend two ASIANetwork annual conferences. The faculty leader is required to attend two ASIANetwork conferences: the conference in spring 2012 starting with the pre-conference “Service-Learning: Studying Environmental Issues in Asia” workshop on Friday, March 30, 2012, and the April 2013 conference to share their experience at a pre-conference/debriefing workshop. Grant money may be used to fund participation at the April 2013 conference of one or two undergraduate student participants.
    3. Assume full responsibility-and release the ASIANetwork and all of its directors, officers, advisors and employees of any liability-for any and all risks and damages arising out of any activity undertaken in connection with the grant.

Contact Information: Dr. Jack D. Harris, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY 14456; phone: 315-781-3439; email ANSLEAP [at] asianetwork.org

Watch this page for further details and information about the different aspects of this grant.

Contact: Program Co-Director Jack Harris (ansleap [at] asianetwork.org)

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The Henry Luce Foundation was established in 1936 by the late Henry R. Luce, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Time Inc. Among the Foundation’s many grant-making initiatives are those that support increased understanding between the United States and Asia.

 

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