From the Chair (1999)

Dear alumni and friends,

This has been another extraordinarily busy and productive year in East Asian Languages and Civilizations. Programmatic and curricular changes and improvements are ongoing, as are faculty teaching, scholarship, and service contributions in a variety of different fields. We have hosted numerous speakers and events, including a second annual CU East Asian Graduate Student Conference and an ongoing series of workshops to develop a more "seamless" curriculum for students of Japanese in Colorado schools. We are grappling with ways to integrate technology into our curricula and leading the way in developing some new applications of technology to the teaching of East Asian languages and cultures. (See below for details on all of these projects.)

Recently the department changed its name from East Asian Languages and Literatures to East Asian Languages and Civilizations to better reflect the full range of content of our undergraduate and graduate programs, the scholarly expertise of our faculty, and our interdisciplinary connections with other units on campus. EALC faculty teach or cross-list courses in other departments across the arts and sciences, including comparative literature, religious studies, linguistics, and the interdisciplinary Asian Studies Program. They also collaborate with faculty in other units in sponsoring visiting lectures, workshops, and other events with a broad appeal. And the name change reflects the addition of master's tracks in Chinese language and civilization and Japanese language and civilization to the Chinese and Japanese language and literature tracks. The first students will be graduating from these tracks this spring.

Because of its unique status as the only department focusing on non-Western cultures, EALC shoulders a special responsibility in broadening student perspectives and internationalizing the campus. Two new courses taught this spring focused on Chinese and Japanese culture through film.

We were pleased to welcome Terry Kleeman to our faculty as a joint hire with Religious Studies, and we also are pleased to have Faye Yuan Kleeman as a new faculty member in Japanese. The Department is delighted to announce that both Terry Kleeman and Steve Snyder were approved for tenure and promotion to Associate Professor this past year. Several visiting faculty, including John Kehlen and Ayako Yamagata in Japanese and Sylvia Li-Chun Lin in Chinese, contributed to our programs in a variety of ways.

We all look forward to our move to new quarters in the Humanities Building currently under construction on the Quadrangle. The move will probably take place during the fall semester, as construction is ahead of schedule! Although our square footage will actually decline somewhat in the new building, the move will have the advantage of bringing together all of our faculty, currently scattered among three different buildings, and it will provide us with additional space for our graduate students and teaching assistants to work, as well as other facilities--lounge, meeting room, library, etc.--which we will share with Religious Studies, Classics, and French and Italian, the other occupants of the building.

Please feel free to write or call if you would like more information about EALC and its activities, and please plan to come visit us in our new home later this year. Also, be sure to keep EALC informed about your current activities. We hope to add an alumni column to this newsletter, and we rely on you to keep us up-to-date with your news.

Finally, I would like to express my condolences to the Berry family, who have endowed a scholarship for a Japanese major in memory of Stephen Berry (JPNS/INAF 1995), who was killed in a car accident this past year.

Laurel Rasplica Rodd