East Asian Studies

The University of Hawaii at Manoa, founded in 1907, throughout its history has been attentive to the needs of the descendants of the original immigrants from East Asia who now comprise over 25% of the student population. UHM, a state land-grant Carnegie I research institution, is home to 20,169 students and 1,345 instructional faculty (student/faculty ratio of 15:1). Most significantly, from the establishment of departments of Chinese and Japanese in the 1920s to the current strategic plan that makes excellence in Asian and Pacific Studies a high-profile university-wide priority, UHM is demonstrably and deeply committed to East Asian studies (EAS).
The East Asia (EA) programs at UHM are coordinated through the Centers for Chinese (CCS), Japanese (CJS) and Korean (CKS) Studies in the School of Pacific and Asian Studies (SPAS) which oversees interdisciplinary certificate and degree programs in Asian Studies (AS). Together, they form the East Asia Council (EAC), whose mission is to 1) direct the EA component of university-wide degree programs, 2) coordinate the acquisition and use of resources, and 3) develop transnational EA projects and proposals. The Council administers the NRCEA.
The resources that the EAC oversees include 133 faculty and 420 EA courses across 25 academic units and 7 professional programs/schools. Of these, 168 are language courses (Chinese, Taiwanese, Cantonese, Japanese, Okinawan, Korean, Mongolian, and Tibetan), and enroll about 3,900 students each year. The EAC is also a partner in developing library resources. The Asia Collection is one of the nation's strongest for EA material, particularly in SE China, Taiwan, the Ryukyus, and 20th c. Korea. UHM's location in a state with a population of 47% Asian ancestry (the highest in the nation) makes outreach a priority. The EAC magnifies its effectiveness by working in cooperation with other units, such as UHM's Curriculum Research and Development Group (CRDG), to sponsor workshops for teachers, produce textbooks, and present in-school programs for K-12. The EAC also collaborates with the East-West Center (EWC) and the Department of Defense's Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS) on conferences and symposia.
The EAC with NRCEA (06-09, four-year cycle) funding support the following: fellowships for graduate students who are trained at the highest language levels; language certificate courses online in cooperation with another Title VI Center, National Foreign Language Resource Center (NFLRC) at UHM; language tests that demonstrate proficiency levels; three new EAS courses that address national security issues; a major initiative for K-12 Korean language teaching (curriculum development, pre-college summer Korean intensive language program) in cooperation with UHM's Korean Flagship Program (Department of Defense Funding); a teachers workshop on a new EA secondary textbook; and language workshops/conferences with NFLRC every year of the grant cycle.
Website://www.hawaii.edu/nrcea