East Asian Studies receives federal grant

Alice Ba and David Pong

3:40 p.m., May 27, 2005--The University of Delaware’s East Asian Studies Program has been awarded a two-year, $170,000 grant by the U.S. Department of Education to support undergraduate international education.

The funding was awarded under the Department of Education’s Title VI program, which grew out of a federal act aimed at improving national security by providing for the development of foreign language and international studies infrastructure at colleges and universities.

Current federal funding is focused on East Asia, with the emergence of China as an economic power, and also the Middle East, with the U.S. dependent on the region’s oil and with the military in Iraq for the foreseeable future.

Grant co-investigators are David Pong, professor of history and founding director of the East Asian Studies Program, and Alice Ba, assistant professor of political science and international relations.

“We are very pleased and very fortunate to receive this grant,” Pong said, adding that it coincides with a surge of interest in East Asian studies, and particularly in China and the Chinese language, at UD. He said the growth of interest in China and Chinese “complements and builds upon already strong interest in Japan and the Japanese language.”

In 1998, just four students majored in East Asian studies, Pong said. That number has grown to 32 majors and more than a dozen minors today, and with it the program has seen important growth in the faculty, which has a wide range of interests from art history and philosophy to criminal justice.

Changing attitudes toward East Asia are driving the upswing in interest. “In the old days, China was viewed as the No. 1 enemy,” Pong said. “Now China is seen as both a competitor and a collaborator. China is the factory of the world.”

“We live in a globalizing world,” Ba said, adding that globalization and the exploration of local-global connections were key parts of the grant application. “It is important to understand interconnections and the historical processes by which East Asia is connected to students’ lives.”

“As we become more cosmopolitan and less Euro-centric, we become more balanced in our exposure to outside influences,” Pong said. “The grant is a tremendous statement for this campus to recognize this new awareness.”

The grant project has several primary goals:

To strengthen offerings in Chinese language instruction.

To develop new courses around the theme of globalization. Currently, the program offers more than three dozen courses and is preparing to add eight new courses, with two or more in Asian art and architecture, and to revise four courses. “We are offering a much richer fare,” Pong said. “Students have a much broader choice of subjects that touch on East Asia.”

To incorporate Southeast Asian studies into the program. “Typically, East Asian studies centers on China, Japan and Korea,” Ba said. “We are expanding the program to include the 10 Southeast Asian nations, which will make the program more reflective of reality and developments ongoing in the region.”

To bring into focus the mutuality of East-West cultural, economic and political exchanges. The new courses include offerings that consider U.S. military bases in East Asia, Japanese pop culture as a force in global culture, Chinese migrant workers on the West Coast of the United States and criminal justice in the East and West.

To expand the program’s reach within UD, to engage colleagues from outside the program and to invite them to participate in the teaching program.

To reach out to the community, to teachers in public and private schools in the state and to the public at large.

Pong said the East Asian Studies Program will raise its profile, both on campus and in the community, through a new speaker series featuring internationally recognized scholars and through a pair of film series, one focused primarily on Japan and one on China.

Pong and Ba praised the College of Arts and Sciences for its support of the East Asian Studies Program as it has grown over the years. They said they are also very appreciative of the support of the academic departments from which the East Asian faculty members are drawn.

Furthermore, they said the Center for International Studies provided invaluable support and advice during the course of the grant application and the UD Office of the Vice Provost for Research provides continuing assistance in critical financial matters.

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