Established on September 1, 2019, The Center for Asian Studies has completed its first year of operation. During the first six months, when academic life was not disrupted by COVID-19, the Center sponsored or co-sponsored a series of successful events that included a concert by Korean pianist Soyeon Kate Lee, four Forums about Asian Culture presented by four distinguished academics from China, and the 2019 Anlin Ku Lecture presented by Dr. Ying-Ying Chang, a distinguished scientist from the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Dennis Kratz, Founding Director of the Center, gave three public lectures related to the work of the Center. Also during this period, the Center continued to sponsor Chinese Language classes and organized Chinese proficiency tests for the public.
Since mid-March, even though COVID-19 caused a sudden halt to all scheduled events and activities for the spring semester, the Center still has achieved several of its goals. We shifted our spring courses online and continued to offer them online in summer; co-sponsored two webinars about Asia; completed formation of the Center's administrative committee and held three committee meetings; and established the Center's International Advisory Board, Faculty Advisory Board and Student Advisory Council. The Associate Directors, Dr. Mingdong Gu and Dr. Karl Ho, have been engaged in establishing international partnerships and exchange programs with universities in Asia. Among their work, a Taiwan Initiative will form part of a University commitment to Taiwan Studies.
The new semester has initiated another of the Center's projects: Collaborating with the Hobson Wildenthal Honors College, the Center offered its first credit course in Asian Studies - HONS 3199 (Issues in Asian Studies). This course explores contemporary interdisciplinary topics in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and engineering of Asian countries. Other projects are going well. Introductory Hindi - a new non-credit Asian language course - has been added to the Center's curriculum and successfully offered from September 1st. On September 17, an online workshop entitled Pronouncing Chinese Names, presented by Professor Bei Chen, one of the Center's affiliated faculty, attracted almost 100 participants. On September 26, founding director Dr. Dennis Kratz gave a successful live online lecture "Odysseus Meets The Monkey King", the fifth Asian Culture Forum since the establishment of the Center.
