Hawaii's World
By A.A. Smyser
Thursday, April 25, 1996
First, this July 22-Aug.10 institute at Manoa will build on the great strengths that the University of Hawaii and the East-West Center have in Asian studies to help fill a crying need in American higher education, where knowledge of Asia is abysmal.
Its contribution will be to bring together faculty members from small colleges throughout America to stimulate their Asian interest and awareness so they can go home and spread the word.
Second, it is a joint undertaking of UH and EWC. They reinforce each other in doing it. Amazingly such UH-EWC cooperation has been limited, even though their campuses are adjoining. The big state-funded UH and the small federally funded EWC just haven't done as much together as they could. But they are likely to be driven to do more as they each confront heavy budget cuts. Great, I say.
UH has some of the best Asian studies and Asian language programs in America. EWC has both international outreach and a contractual obligation to the U.S. to "foster mutual understanding and cooperation among the governments and peoples of the Asia-Pacific region, including the United States."
America has to get up to speed on Asia as soon as possible. It is where 60 percent of the world's people live. It has economic vitality that is taking it ahead by leaps and bounds. It is going to be crucial to our future. And most Americans know pitifully little about its cultures and languages.
This is the logic behind the Asian Studies Development Program, which was the brainchild of former EWC President Victor Li. He offered it in addresses to the American Association of Community Colleges and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.
Its goal is to teach teachers throughout the U.S. to understand Asia better and to infuse this into their curriculums. The network now embraces 42 states and 150 colleges and universities, most of them small. It fills a gap in EWC outreach by also involving many blacks and Hispanics.
The 150 colleges are linked through 10 regional centers throughout the U.S. These arrange follow-up institutes for their own areas and get ASDP assistance.
The centers are at Paradise Valley Community College in Arizona, City College of San Francisco, Black Hawk College and College of DuPage in Illinois, the University of New Orleans, Middlesex Community College in Massachusetts, York College at the City University of New York, Tulsa Junior College in Oklahoma, Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania, and the University of Texas at El Paso.
Basically, the program has three elements: (1) faculty members attend an institute either in Hawaii or on the mainland; (2) they go on field trips to Asia; and (3) they work through the regional programs to infuse Asian awareness through college curricula in their area.
SINCE UH and EWC funds are limited, expenses are shared with the participants and their colleges. Private and government grants also help. The program co-directors are Roger Ames, a UH philosophy professor, who heads the Center for Chinese Studies, and Elizabeth Buck, a research fellow at the East-West Center.
ASDP now is entering its sixth year and has 400 alumni. Ames and Buck travel extensively throughout the U.S. to help with regional institutes. They take part in field trips as well.
So far both the UH and EWC have spared the program from disabling budget cuts. EWC President Kenji Sumida indicates he is looking for even more ways for UH and EWC to cooperate like this.