The department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Colorado at Boulder is the recipient of the Japanese Foreign Minister's Commendation and two new grants from the Freeman Foundation.
The commendation was conferred by Acting Consul-General Ken'ichi Kudo and personally signed by the new Japanese Foreign Minister, Makiko Tanaka. It is presented to organizations and individuals who have made exceptional contributions in such areas as increasing mutual understanding and friendly ties between nations, encouraging cultural exchange and various activities that enhance the interests of the two countries.
The EALC department was one of only two recipients in the United States to be recognized this year. Laurel Rasplica Rodd, department chair, Steve Snyder, associate professor and director of the Asian Studies program and Rodney Taylor, acting dean of the Graduate School, accepted the award at the consulate awards ceremony in Denver on Aug. 23.
"We were very pleased that they recognized the efforts we've been making with outreach to schools to improve American understanding of East Asia and our faculty efforts to expand undergraduate and graduate student participation in on-campus study of East Asia, as well as Study Abroad and internships," Rodd said.
EALC's programs and activities also are being recognized by the Freeman Foundation, which recently awarded the department one of the first grants in its new undergraduate initiative.
The $2 million grant is designed to strengthen the undergraduate East Asian programs in a variety of ways, including adding new faculty positions to enhance the curriculum in pre-modern Chinese history and East Asian fine arts. It also supports funding for development of new courses by current faculty, including courses that will be taught during the summer in China, Japan or Korea on topics such as religious traditions, literature, contemporary social practices and business and political institutions.
Other initiatives include expanding the library collection, enriching student support for scholarships and internships and expanding the outreach component to include more student participation in activities in K-12 schools. EALC will collaborate with the Center for East Asian Studies and the Asian Studies program on these and other initiatives.
An additional grant from the Freedom Foundation is designed to benefit Colorado K-12 teachers and students. The $780,000 award will help establish a Colorado Consortium for Teaching East Asia, a statewide collaborative network of schools, institutions and individuals committed to advancing Asian Studies.
According to Lynn Parisi, director of the Program for Teaching East Asia, the grant will help to further efforts already underway in the state to help school districts gain the expertise to implement outstanding programs.
"Recent national reports have outlined the importance of teaching about Asia as a political and economic partner and the challenges we face as we increasingly work with Asia in the 21st century," Parisi said. "CU-Boulder is on the cutting edge in establishing initiatives to address these issues in American education. The grant will enable us now to reach out to underserved areas in Colorado that haven't had an opportunity to participate in Asian Studies programs."
Grant initiatives include development of an annual professional development series for teachers and opportunities for teachers and high school students for summer study in China and Japan. For more information, call the Program for Teaching East Asia at (303) 735-5122.
CU-Boulder is the only university in Colorado to offer undergraduate and graduate degree programs in Chinese and Japanese and this fall is offering a new course in beginning Korean. In its specialized curriculum and general education courses, EALC is a unique resource for the university and for the state. For more information, call (303) 492-6639 or visit the Web at .