A Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges to Promote Asian Studies
Luce Foundation Asian Art in the Undergraduate Curriculum Grant
Last Round of Consultancies 2007-2008
Example of image: "Hong punch bowl" (Detailed annotation)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Gerry Lenfest
The Reeves Collection, Washington and Lee University
Lexington, VA
ASIANetwork has received a $370,000 grant from the Luce Foundation to support our 2005-2009 consultancy and publication project, Asian Art in the Undergraduate Curriculum. This project seeks to tap the Asian art and items of visual culture that exist on our college campuses and help faculty who are teaching about Asia integrate these resources into their courses. The end product of the project will be a book with an accompanying DVD, to be entitled Asian Art in the Undergraduate Curriculum. The book and DVD will have two foci. The first is to clarify how to utilize Asian art effectively in classroom instruction. The second is to identify and make the Asian art and objects of visual culture discovered through this consultancy useful in classes ranging across the liberal arts curriculum.
Program Outline
- Asian Art in the Undergraduate Curriculum is a four year project (Fall 2005 - Summer 2009) with three rounds of on-campus consultancies.
- The core of the project is identification of a diverse selection of Asian art and items of visual culture useful in creating pedagogical materials.
- Pieces from China, India, Southeast Asia, Korea, Japan, Tibet and the Himalayan region will be included.
- An on-campus coordinator will be identified at each school to prepare the groundwork for a consultant visit by identifying potentially useful items at their school and compiling a list of holdings to be examined during the consultancy.
- Asian art consultants will visit campuses to assist in analyzing collections and identifying items of aesthetic and pedagogic value to the project.
- On-campus coordinators will arrange for quality digitization of the works the consultants select during their visit.
- Application deadline for round three is January 8, 2007 for the eight consultancies to be carried out in 2007-2008. Notification will be given to successful applicants the following March.
- The grant will provide for consultants' travel expenses and stipends. Schools will be responsible for consultant's on-campus expenses (and, if an optional special lecture is desired, responsible for the honorarium for that lecture).
- Our Selection Committee will review consultant and coordinator reports and decide which items are to be included in the book and the DVD that are the end-products of this project.
- Schools will be asked to grant copyright permission for use of their materials in the book and/or DVD.
- Schools that apply for participation in this project must be or become members of ASIANetwork (see www.asianetwork.org for membership details).
- See the narrative page and the Question & Answer page at our web site for further information.
Special Grant Opportunity
Campuses having larger collections of Asian materials and expert staff may apply for a special grant of up to $1,500 to support nomination of items for inclusion in the project. These grants may also be used to purchase display cases and frames, to mount Asian art exhibits, or meet other educational needs.
Further Details
We are setting up series of consultations with ASIANetwork schools possessing established collections, to identify those objects of art and visual culture that fit the goals of the project. We are also focusing on identifying ASIANetwork schools that may have "hidden pockets" of Asian art and/or visual culture. An example of this might be a college with an alumus who traveled in, say, Thailand, and brought back some excellent pieces of Thai art that were then given to the school. Eventually, when no one knew what to do with them, they were stuck in a box and stored away in a basement or attic where they now await rediscovery. It may be that only a very senior faculty or staff member knows of the existence of such pieces, so this project should definitely be brought to the attention of senior persons at our institutions.
The 2005-2006 first round of consultancies is completed, a second round has been chosen for 2006-2007, and a third round will follow in 2007-2008. Consultancies are a core element of the project because many of our ASIANetwork liberal arts colleges have collections of Asian art, but do not have art historians trained to evaluate them. As a consequence, Asian works of art on some campuses may never have been properly identified and catalogued, and others are yet to be discovered and utilized. The deadline for completed applications from schools desiring to receive consultancies in 2007-2008 is January 8, 2007. A selection committee will review proposals in February 2007, and successful applicants for the third round of consultancies will be notified by March 1, 2007.
Each consultancy will include a two-day campus visit by an outside consultant, with ground work for the visit and preliminary research to be completed by an on-campus consultancy coordinator. The consultant will examine and identify works of Asian art on exhibit or in storage at the school to determine which works of art and visual culture hold the best pedagogical promise for strengthening student understanding of Asia. Consultants will recommend items for the on-campus coordinators to digitize for possible inclusion in the book. The on-campus coordinator will digitize the recommend works and send them to the Project Administrator. The consultant will submit a final report on the visit to the college and to ASIANetwork.
The on-campus coordinator will make local arrangements for the consultant's visit as well as for the documentation and digitization of the works the consultant nominates for possible publication. The digitized images and commentary will be sent to the Project Administrator for consideration by a committee of editors and chapter authors who will decide which items to include in the book and its DVD. Schools will be asked to support only their consultant's housing and meal costs while on campus. Should a school wish to arrange for a consultant to give an optional lecture during the on-campus visit, an honorarium for that lecture would also be the responsibility of the host institution. The other costs of the consultancy visit, for example, travel costs and an honorarium for the consultant, will be met by the grant. The on-campus coordinator will be asked to write a two or three page summary report of the visit, and will receive a stipend of $1500 from ASIANetwork when the consultancy is completed.
Some schools may already have substantial collections of Asian art and personnel with expertise in Asian art history. Not needing the services of a consultant, these colleges may apply for grants of up to $1,500 to help them catalogue, analyze, digitize, and nominate works from their collections for inclusion in the project. These grants may also be used to purchase display cases and frames, or to mount Asian art exhibits.
The Application Process:
In order for the Selection Committee to evaluate effectively the suitability of a college for a consultancy visit, applications for such a visit should include: 1) An outline of the contents of the applicant college's Asian art and visual culture collection. The outline should also include a brief summary of the history, method of acquisition, etc. of as many individual pieces as is possible. 2) The current status of the collection: Is it being displayed, or is it being stored? Are the individual works in generally good repair? 3) Identification of museum personnel or art history faculty at the college who have worked with or are currently working with the collection. 4) The name of the on-campus coordinator for the consultancy and the coordinator's resume. 5) An iteration of the coordinator's responsibilities for the consultant's visit. These responsibilities should include surveying the collection, arranging the consultant visit, continuing communication with the Project Administrator regarding progress in further cataloguing and digitizing the collection, and handling copyright permissions. Additionally, within one year after the consultant's visit, the on-campus coordinator should submit a short report on the impact of the visit to the Project Administrator at the address given below.
An excellent proposal will include a statement about the items in the collection that establishes a solid basis for a consultancy visit. The qualifications of the on-campus coordinator who will be working with the consultant should be stated in a manner that emphasizes the coordinator's willingness and ability to undertake such a major project and see the school's participation through to its completion.
Contact Dr. Stan Mickel, Project Administrator, Wittenberg University, Springfield, Ohio 45501 (smickel@Wittenberg.edu (937) 327-6354) for further information.