Faculty members from across the campus are encouraged to explore the possibility of adding units or modules on any region or country in Asia to existing undergraduate courses or to develop new undergraduate courses. The Asian Studies Program has funding for faculty travel leading to course enhancement or development. PROPOSAL FORM
SUMMER 2008
Christine Avenarius (Department of Anthropology, Harriot College of Arts and Sciences)
I am applying for an Asian Studies Course Development Grant to travel to Vietnam for 2 weeks in May of 2008. Experiences with Vietnamese culture and contact with Vietnamese research institutions will enable me to enhance my teaching of ASIA 2000, Introduction to Asian Studies, and to develop a new anthropology course on the Cultures of Mainland Southeast Asia modeled after my current course ANTH 3002, Cultures of East Asia. Specifically, I want to focus on recent changes in gender relations and family structures influenced by Vietnam’s participation in the global marketplace. A preliminary literature review uncovered the existence of several data sets on gender and family relations held by research institutions in Vietnam, e.g. the Vietnam Longitudinal Survey Project by the Institute of Sociology in Hanoi.
Prior to travel I want to establish contact with three institutions in Vietnam, namely the Departments of Sociology and Anthropology in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities at the Vietnam National University in Hanoi; the Institute of Sociology at the National Center for Social Sciences and Humanities (NCSSH) in Hanoi, and the Department of Ethnology, Archaeology and Sociology at Hue University in Central Vietnam. I chose the latter, Hue University, rather than an institution in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) because I hope to explore the difference between the main urban centers and less populated, but ethnically more diverse areas of the country. While in Vietnam one objective is to learn more about research projects in these institutions that might maybe lead to potential visits to field sites of local researchers. In addition, I am confident that my training as a social anthropologist and my previous experience in mainland China will allow me to understand Vietnamese culture from the point of view of the local people despite the fact that I don’t know the language.
Holly Hapke (Department of Geography, Harriot College of Arts and Sciences)
This project proposes to spend approximately 4 weeks in Sri Lanka in Summer 2008 for the purposes of developing educational modules in three courses that I currently teach: GEOG 3051 (Asia); GEOG 4325 (Resources, Population & Development); and GEOG 1000 Introduction to Geography. My objective is to develop two modules relating to Sri Lanka that will be incorporated into these 3 courses. The first module will be entitled, “Poverty, Politics & Development” and will be used primarily in GEOG 3051. The second module will be entitled “Environmental Degradation & the Politics of Tsunami Relief”. This will be developed for GEOG 4325. Modified versions of both modules will be incorporated into GEOG 1000.
Through professional contacts in the Department of Geography at the University of Peradeniya, I will arrange interactions with scholars at the University of Peradeniya and University of Colombo who are researching issues related to development, environment, political instability and tsunami relief. I will consult library materials at these two universities and will also take a number of field trips to various development projects sites and tsunami hit areas to collect images and interview residents and project and relief/rehabilitation workers. I will then develop the modules around a set of readings and illustrated case studies for the two upper division courses. For the GEOG 1000 course, I will develop a series of illustrated lectures from the materials collected for these two modules.
Kathryn Hashimoto (Department of Hospitality Management, College of Human Ecology)
I teach two courses: 1) hospitality marketing and 2) hospitality service management. … Asians are reputed to be the most hospitable countries in the world. In Japan, the focus on the satisfied guest is legendary. Historically, the Japanese geishas are legendary for their ability to study a guest’s needs and provide for their every desire. In recent times, travelers always comment about the women who meet and greet every shopper at department stores. What motivates the Japanese employee to provide excellent service? As Japan becomes more global, is that corporate culture changing? Do Japanese companies create motivational programs for their employees? Historically, Japanese workers stayed with one company for their entire work lives. Is that still the case? These questions can only be answered by talking to people. The service class explores the American efforts to identify a better way to do business. However, it would be a better class if other cultures were introduced to show different corporate cultures and employee relationships. Several cases would be created within the topics of corporate culture, hiring and training as well as motivation and handling complaints. I would like to talk to hospitality professors who teach service management to explore what topics they cover and their perspectives. In addition, I would like to observe service in various hospitality settings and take pictures and videos of service in action. Going to Japan would enable me to study first hand Japanese buying behaviors, their related motivations in selling techniques in advertisements, and their employee-employer relationships.
Derek Maher (Religious Studies Program, Harriot College of Arts and Sciences)
The primary focus of my research and teaching is Tibetan religion and culture. Yet, I have never been to Tibet because the political climate in Tibet throughout much of the past two decades has not been amenable to research focused on philosophy and history, two of my primary areas of research. Consequently, I have done most of my field research in the exile communities in India and Nepal. More recently, however, it has become possible for scholars to study in Tibet with greater latitude and flexibility than in the past.
It would be extraordinarily helpful to my general knowledge, my research, and particularly my course development if I could travel through Tibet and visit many of the locations about which I have been reading for almost twenty years. This grant would permit me to visit a wide variety of sites in central and western Tibet, the locus of many of the most significant sites in the Geluk School that has been the focus of my study.
I would visit the primary temples, monasteries, and palaces in the Lhasa valley, including the Potala Palace, the Jokang Temple, Ramoché Temple and Drepung, Ganden, and Sera monasteries. In Western Tibet, I would visit significant locations in Gyangtse, Shigatse, Sakya, and Lhatse. I would also visit Samye Monastery, Reting Labrang, and other notable locations in Central Tibet.
These experiences would enable me to develop my courses more extensively by providing me with the first person contact in a broad range of religious contexts. I am fluent in the modern colloquial Tibetan language, as well as the classical Tibetan language, and I am able to converse in several of the main regional dialects. Thus, I would be able to engage local people to flesh out my knowledge of many aspects of Tibetan religious life.
Elaine Seeman (Department of Management Information Systems, College of Business)
I plan to develop an elective MIS course to familiarize students with Global Information Systems issues in China … Visiting China and IS companies within China would give me firsthand knowledge and expand my expertise substantially. I can then share my knowledge and experience with my students and colleagues. I hope to establish a relationship within a Chinese University’s MIS Department so my course would enable students to participate in multi-country curricular projects. Because virtual teams around the globe are becoming a common way of developing MIS projects, such a relationship would be mutually beneficial to the ECU and Chinese students. …
I will visit Google, IBM, Lear, Microsoft, Symbio-Group and Asianux, the Linix Distributing Group in Beijing. I hope to set up interviews with these companies that will be completed during the grant visit. It is also my hope to establish professional relationships with individuals at these firms so that lecture exchanges in the form of video conferences can be implemented via the Global Classroom when I am teaching the course on the ECU campus. In addition to Beijing, I feel that it is essential that I visit Hong Kong to understand the very different entrepreneurial environment found in this Chinese city.
Jan-Ru Wan (Textile Art Program, School of Art and Design, College of Fine Arts and Communication)
… I propose to travel and gather information about the textile heritage in Northern Thailand and Laos for a month during the summer of 2008. I hope to achieve multiple goals during this visit. First, I will document first-hand knowledge in the various aspects of textile creation, such as the process to create nature dye, ikat weaving, and the ways of living in the villages with a dominant textile culture. Second, I will collect as many samples as I can using my limited personal fund and bring them back to my classroom. Finally, I will connect with different textile programs in the universities in Thailand to develop summer study courses for 2009 or 2010. I hope that these activities will play a major role in developing our studio practice and in introducing textile history from Asia. The knowledge and materials from Asia will become an important aspect in our class, as our students will be inspired by Asian culture and rich history, and be able to integrate this learning experience in their own art creation.
