Issue No. 2
October 2008
Compiled by: Dr. Jonathan Noble, Advisor for Asia Initiatives
Office of the Provost
Center for Asian Studies (CAS)
The Center for Asian Studies (CAS) welcomed Dr. Howard Goldblatt as its new Director. Dr. Goldblatt is a prominent translator of Chinese fiction and an accomplished scholar of modern Chinese literature and culture. The Center’s former Director, Associate Professor Susan Blum, helped the Center grow to include over forty faculty and staff members serving twelve major departments or offices campus wide during her five years as director (2003-2008). CAS is organizing a symposium on Catholicism in East Asia on March 31, 2009.
New Faculty, Visiting Fellows, and Research
The Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures (EALC) welcomed Professor Jung-Hyuck Lee, most recently acting director of Korean Studies at the University of Chicago. Professor Lee is offering courses in both Korean language and culture. She is joined in the Department by Professor Sungood Yang who is visiting for the 2008-2009 academic year from Seoul National University and is teaching courses about Korean civilization, culture and media. The Daesan Foundation is generously supporting Professor Yang’s visiting appointment at Notre Dame.
EALC also welcomed two new instructors of Chinese language, Assistant Professional Specialist Yangjing Wang and Visiting Assistant Professional Specialist Yi He.
2008-2009 Kellogg Institute Visiting Fellows include Asian specialists Noor O’Neill Borbieva, a postdoctoral fellow in anthropology researching local communities in the Kyrgyz Republic, and Sanjay Ruparelia, whose research focusese on federal coalition politics in India.
Student Enrollment in Asian languages and Asian studies
Nearly 250 students are enrolled in Asian language courses during the fall 2008 semester. Approximately 150 students are enrolled in Chinese, eighty in Japanese, and fourteen in the new beginning Korean language course. The number of students at the fourth year or advanced level in Chinese and Japanese increased to 35.(1)
About 400 students in the College of Arts and Letters are enrolled in an array of eighteen courses that teach about Asia.(2)
Programs and Opportunities
Korean Studies was officially launched at Notre Dame in fall 2008. In September the Kellogg Institute for International Studies hosted a ceremony to officially launch Korean studies and welcome its new faculty. The event featured a question-and-answer session with award-winning South Korean film director Myung-Se Lee and screenings of his films “Duelist” and “M.”
Forty-two students will spend either an academic year or one semester studying abroad in Notre Dame’s programs in Asia, including Tokyo, Nagoya, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, which are administered through the Office of International Studies. The student exchange program with the Chinese University of Hong Kong was launched fall 2008. This program is supported by the Lanson Foundation, which was established by Dr. Edgar Cheng. (3)
Eight Notre Dame students participated in Notre Dame’s intensive Chinese language program in Taiwan at Fu Jen Catholic University during the summer 2008. This program is supported by the Douglas Tong Hsu endowment for excellence in Asian Studies.
Nine Notre Dame students participated in the coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games as interns for NBC Sports. These internships were supported by the Career Center’s Global Initiative and the Provost Office’s Asia Initiatives. More than ten Notre Dame undergraduate students held internships in Tokyo, Beijing, and Hong Kong during the summer 2008. Companies included STAR TV in Hong Kong and United Technologies International in Beijing and were facilitated by alumni Dr. Paul Aiello and Mr. Jim Gradoville, respectively. Mr. Jeff Fisher, President of the Notre Dame Club in Hong Kong, facilitated internships in Hong Kong’s financial industry.
Four students received Advanced Chinese Research Initiative awards from the Provost Office’s Asia Initiatives to support their research projects in Taiwan and China during summer 2008. Award recipients were required to use their Chinese language skills while conducting their research projects.
Two students held Kellogg Undergraduate Internships in Asia during summer 2008. Brian Beyersdorf and Chris Carrington held internships at the Foundation for Sustainable Development in India. Kellogg has established three new internship sites in Asia for summer 2009, partnering with WorldTeach in China and ProWorld Service Corps in India and Thailand.
Executive Education in the Mendoza College of Business offered the Notre Dame and Runckel & Associates Vietnam Program in Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi, June 1 to 7, 2008.
Eight Notre Dame students through the Center for Social Concerns’ International Summer Service Learning Program participated in eight-week service-learning internships with nongovernmental organizations in Cambodia, Thailand, Calcutta and Chennai, India. For 2009, the Center will expand its outreach to Asia by adding placements in China and Bangladesh. (4)
Student International Business Council (SIBC) is working on a year-long project on the marketing and branding of Notre Dame in Asia. SIBC also offers summer internship positions in Thailand and Cambodia. SIBC hosted the talk “Doing Business in Asia” by Sir Deryck Maughn, Managing Director and Chairman of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (Asia) in April 2008. (5)
The inaugural Master in Accountancy China study tour took place in March 2008. Eight graduate accountancy students participated in a 10-day China immersion experience. In addition to receiving business briefings and participating in plant tours, the students also took part in cultural enrichment opportunities.
Forty-five MBA students participated in the China inter-term intensive during the October Fall break in 2008. The program will also run during Spring Break 2009.
In 2008/2009, a new musical ensemble was established by Visiting Assistant Professor Stephanie Ng that includes Chinese percussion ensemble utilizing Chinese clappers, Buddhist prayer drums, cymbals, gongs and the Japanese taiko drum.
Events
Professor James Bartholomew from The Ohio State University’s Department of History gave the talk “Is There Anything Unique About Modern Japanese Science?” [November 2007]
Professor Jean Oi, William Haas Professor in Chinese Politics Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University gave the talk “Political Cross Currents in China's Corporate Restructuring.” [February 2008]
Professor Andrew Walder, Denise O'Leary and Kent Thiry Professor in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University gave the talk “The Beijing Red Guard Movement: China's Cultural Revolution in Retrospect.” [February 2008]
Professor Herbert Bix, Pulitzer Prize winning author and Professor of History and Sociology at Binghamton University, gave the talk “Collateral Damage: the Rhetoric of War Crimes in 21st Century America.” [March 2008]
Professor Jonathan Chaves form the Department of Chinese at George Washington University gave the talk “ ‘Touches with a Coal from Heaven’ : Wu Li and the First Chinese Christian Poetry.” [March 2008]
2008 Asian Film Festival and Conference “Love at First Sight: Romance and Relationships in Asian and Asian American Cinema” featured the films The Trouble with Romance (USA), Train Man (Korea), Omkara (India), and My Sassy Girl (Japan). [March 2008]
Thirty-five students participated in the First Annual Chinese Speech contest in April 2008. They competed in four categories by level: 1st Year Students; 2nd Year Students; Advanced Students (3rd, 4th, and Advanced Chinese classes), and Heritage Speakers.
Other student events included a Tibetan Film Festival (April 2008), the Lunar New Year Party, and Asian Allure, which is organized annually by the Asian American Association.
From May 19 - June 1, 2008 the Notre Dame Concert Band toured China and Japan. Concerts featured Olympic themed music and the premiere of a brand new piece written especially for our tour and the Beijing Olympics by Dr. Ken Dye.
The University of Notre Dame Celebration in Beijing was held during the Olympics on August 15, 2008. This event was supported by the Notre Dame alumni clubs in Beijing and Shanghai, the Notre Dame Alumni Association, and the Provost Office’s Asia Initiatives. Provost Tom Burish and Executive Vice President John Affleck-Graves attended, and special guests included ND Olympic gold medalist Mariel Zagunis.
Delegations from Sogang University (Seoul, Korea) and Assumption University (Bangkok, Thailand) visited Notre Dame during spring 2008. The President of Yuan Ze University in Taiwan visited in September 2008.
Recruitment
Thirty-three undergraduate students from Asia entered the Class of 2012.(6) In October 2008, Note Dame’s undergraduate admissions counselors visited over thirty high schools in Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
In Fall 2008, the Graduate School welcomed fifty-five new Master’s Degree and Doctoral students from Asia. The Law School welcomed two new LLM students from Asia (Korea and Nepal) and one new JSD student from Uzbekistan. The Law School welcomed two visiting law scholars from Japan.
New arrivals from Asia in the Mendoza School of Business include twenty-eight MBA and fourteen Master of Science Accountancy students from Asia, including twelve from China and one each from Korea and India.(7)
Asia Initiatives is thankful to the Kellogg Institute for International Studies for helping to produce and distribute this newsletter.
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- Enrollment figures obtained online through insideND on October 17, 2008.
- Same as above.
- Figure provided by the Office of International Studies.
- Figure provided by the Center for Social Concerns.
- Figure provided by SIBC.
- Figures provided by the Undergraduate Admissions office.
- Figures provided by the Graduate School, Law School, and Mendoza College of Business.