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September 28, 2007 > News > Asian Studies gets major boost

Asian Studies gets major boost

Chao Foundation pledges $15 million for new center

By Diana Lee | Thresher staff

The Ting-Tsung and Wei-Fong Chao Foundation pledged $15 million to build a new Asian Studies Center at Rice. The foundation will donate $10 million immediately and is asking the community to contribute another $10 million to the Asian Studies cause. If that goal is reached, the foundation will donate $5 million more.

“[The donation] will enable us to transform an already robust Asian Studies program into a world class Center for Asian Studies,” History Professor Richard Smith said. “The funding of the center will bring Asian Studies at Rice to a new level.”

Smith said the Chao Center will eventually support postdoctoral research and provide research opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students, with hopes of creating a graduate program.

The Chao Center will be modeled after the Transnational China Project, which is led by Director of Asian Studies Steven Lewis.

The Transnational China Project studies contemporary mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore by sponsoring and publishing research and maintaining an image archive of the area. The Chao Center will study the movement of ideas, products, technologies and people between nations. The center will promote interdisciplinary collaboration in both research and teaching with local, national and international partnerships.

“Keeping in mind the transnational dimension, we can now create Asian Studies majors that have, for example, a business or architectural orientation,” Smith said.

He said there are plans to develop other projects within the framework of the Chao Center, such as the Transnational Japan Project and the Transnational India Project.

“The transformation of Asia is phenomenal so it doesn’t make sense to think of China as an isolated entity anymore,” Smith said. “We are focused on the interaction between Asian countries and the larger global environment.”

The Chao Center will recruit several new faculty members, including a specialist in transnational interactions in Asia to serve as a permanent director. Smith will serve as the center’s interim director until another director is found.

“With the addition of four senior-level faculty hires and several post-doctoral fellows, we will have a critical mass of like-minded individuals who will enable us to develop path-breaking graduate and undergraduate programs,” Smith said.

Future courses at the Chao Center will be modeled after ASIA 211: Intro to Asian Civilizations and will focus on several Asian countries. The instructors of the course this year were Smith, Art History Professor Shih-Shan Huang and Political Science Professor Elora Shehabuddin.

“Students are always asking for new classes, and now there is the opportunity to do just that,” Lewis said.

The directors said they are hoping to attract more donors with the construction of the Chao Center. This future space will include offices and meeting areas for visiting groups and seminars, as well as display areas for Asian artifacts, Smith said.

The center will also provide a central space for people interested in Asian studies to convene. Smith said he hoped this would encourage students from other disciplines to consider courses in Asian Studies.

Smith hopes the center will also bring together faculty interested in Asian Studies.

“We have a pre-existing core of very talented faculty who now have a vision,” he said. “With the center, there is now a cohesive focus for their research that can develop into something that is more than the sum of its parts.”

Wiess College junior Gina Cao thinks the Chao Center will enhance the Asian Studies program.

“I think the expansion of the interdisciplinary Asian Studies program through the establishment of the Chao Center will attract an increasing number of serious scholars in all levels of university life to Rice,” she said. “More people allows for more dialogue, which will make the current program more engaging.”

The Chaos are long-time contributors to Rice and are especially interested in supporting transnational studies and faculty members. They are supporters of the Transnational China Project at the Baker Institute, which led to their interest in the Asian Studies program at Rice.

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