World War II made those ties even closer, and East Asian studies took root at CU-Boulder in the form of the Naval Training School in Japanese Language. Later, the East Asian languages and civilizations department on the Boulder campus built a national reputation for its instruction and research in East Asia. In the 1960s an Asian Studies Program was established, but East Asian studies remained at its core with courses on other areas of Asia only offered sporadically.

To address the need for bringing a broader view of Asian studies to the Boulder campus, Stephen Snyder, associate professor of Japanese and comparative literature, and Dennis McGilvray, associate professor of anthropology, successfully applied for a Department of Education grant to expand course offerings.

“By doing a major redesign of the Asian Studies curriculum,” said Snyder, who is also director of the Center for Asian Studies, “we hope to increase the number of students enrolled in the Asian Studies Program. We know that students have a keen interest in South Asia, so we created a course in South and Southeast Asian civilizations. Students in the Asian Studies Program now take a senior capstone seminar that encourages considering the whole of Asia.”

Essential to understanding other cultures is studying their native languages. Japanese and Chinese language instruction has been offered at CU-Boulder for many years. The grant funded a position to teach introductory and advanced courses in Korean. The grant also covers membership in the National Associations of Self-Instructional Language Programs (NASILP), which this fall will provide instructional materials for students who want to take Vietnamese or Hindi. The membership provides for native tutors and visiting language examiners, under the direction of the Anderson Language Technology Center (ALTEC).

“The Center for Asian Studies, an independent center composed of faculty members from many departments, is working closely with East Asian languages and civilizations to encourage more students to major in Asian studies,” said Snyder. “In light of events happening in the world, what could be more important now than for us to understand better the languages and cultures of Asia, which play an increasingly critical role in the peace and prosperity of our world?”