Goals
Asia is vast: its lands and peoples reflect the world’s earliest civilizations. Asian nations are also moving into the future, their populations mobilizing a range of resources as they participate in our increasingly transnational and cosmopolitan world.
The UC Irvine Center for Asian Studies captures the diversity and promise of Asia well. The Center's faculty members, who are scattered within five different schools, continue to research and publish on important issues, but more can be done. The Department of East Asian Studies in the School of Humanities offers Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese, but there is student demand for more: especially Tagalog, Hindi, and Sanskrit.
Some forty graduate students study aspects of Asian history, culture, and politics in departments across the campus, most notably history, political science, anthropology and film studies. However, more students could come to UCI, such as applicants from Asia in particular, if their need for financial backing could be met. The Center would like to expand and heighten its impact on academic knowledge internationally and strengthen community-building in its immediate area.
Our Goals Are Important
China and India are the world’s most populous nations with Japan, Korea, Taiwan, India, and Indonesia as vibrant democracies increasingly influential in the world today. The major world religions of Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, Sikhism, Jainism, and Shintoism all began in Asia. Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population, and substantial Muslim populations are found in throughout South Asia as well.
Our students learn about Asia and contribute their knowledge to society in many ways: working as academics in institutions of higher education and as experts in international business, law, and social service organizations. Some help build cultural understanding through the arts, and all enhance understandings of Asia in numerous ways in their daily lives.
We desire to have more students at both the undergraduate and graduate level as well as more faculty members in order to expand the Center's capacities to produce more knowledge and to serve more people.
You Can Help Us Achieve Our Goals
The center has excellent resources, both on campus and off, but it needs help to maximize them. Situated in the midst of Orange County’s varied and vibrant Asian immigrant communities, many of our students come from those communities while others from around the world can take advantage of their proximity to these different communities to experience Asian immigrant cultures.
The center would like to bring more graduate students, scholars, writers, and artists from Asia; but rising tuition and living costs have made that harder to do. We have initiated exchange programs with a Chinese and a Japanese university but much more can be done. Generous donors will make the difference between having goals and achieving them.
To invest in the Center for Asian Studies, please contact:
Linda Haghi
Executive Director of Development
lhaghi@uci.edu
(949) 824-2923
To receive announcements about our programs and events, please contact:
Program Manager
CAS@uci.edu
(949) 824-1948