The Center for Asian Studies is pleased to announce that we have been selected to receive a Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Languages (UISFL) grant from the US Department of Education for the next two years. Entitled “Creating a Certificate Program in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies,” this grant will allow us to further develop our Tibetan and Himalayan Studies offerings here on the CU Boulder campus. “CU Boulder is an internationally recognized leader in research on Tibet & Himalaya issues. This grant will help bring that expertise to our undergraduate students in the form of a new certificate program in Asian Studies,” said CAS Director Tim Oakes.
The grant has three main components:
1) Tibetan and Himalayan area studies: we plan to hire a half-time instructor who will develop and offer introductory courses on Tibetan and Himalayan civilization from traditional to contemporary times, offer course development grants to encourage CU faculty members to add Tibetan and Himalayan content to existing courses or create new courses focusing on the region, and work with our partners at the Tibet Himalaya Initiative to plan a series of events on the region. The first event, “The Chinese Revolution on the Tibetan Frontier: Rebellion, Repression, and Remembrance on a Tibetan Borderland of Early-Maoist China,” a lecture by Benno Weiner, Associate Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University, will be held on Zoom on Wednesday, October 7.
2) Tibetan and Nepali language courses: beginning in fall 2021, we plan to offer credit-bearing Directed Independent Language Studies (DILS) courses in both Tibetan and Nepali languages, in partnership with the Anderson Language Technology Center (ALTEC).
3) Language study scholarships: we will offer scholarships to students who will pursue summer language programs in Tibetan and Nepali, either through study abroad or domestically, to help them build their language skills beyond the introductory level available at CU.
Information about grant activities will be posted to the CAS website as it becomes available.