Hobart and William Smith Colleges
IN-26: Innovation C

Hobart and William Smith Colleges’ Asian Environmental Studies (AES) Initiative is an innovative curricular and research opportunity for HWS faculty, staff and students, as well as partners of the initiative. The initiative builds on existing institutional strengths in Environmental Studies and Asian Studies, and seeks to infuse East Asia in a meaningful and substantive manner into teaching and research on human-environment relations at HWS. The initiative also seeks to catalyze AES work across the liberal arts community through curriculum workshops, collaborative research and teaching, symposia, study abroad and other programs.

Through the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation, the Colleges have planned, coordinated and hosted several curriculum workshops to catalyze and focus AES planning across liberal arts campuses and allow interested faculty to share ideas and best practices. The 2011 and 2013 curriculum development workshops consisted of two days of guest speakers with expertise in Asian environmental studies, break out sessions to focus on specific topics, networking and other opportunities to share best practices. The target audience for the workshops was faculty from liberal arts campuses who teach about environmental issues in East Asia or who are planning to do so. The workshops assist faculty through the development of new courses or through modules in existing courses. Facilitators helped focus the workshops with questions designed to both identify broad themes and issue areas for AES, as well as look tactically on how those issues might be brought into AES classrooms in meaningful and challenging ways. Speakers at the curriculum workshops have included specialists from the China Environment Forum’s Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Cornell University, Montana State University, University of California at Los Angeles, among others.

In 2012, the Colleges hosted its fifth biennial Half the World Symposium on Asian Environments as part of the AES Initiative at HWS. This interdisciplinary Symposium brings together scholars (including graduate students) whose work examines any aspect of human-environment interactions in East Asia (including Southeast and Northeast Asia). Speakers at the Half the World Symposium included specialists from American University, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, Bryant University, College of Wooster, Colgate University, Colorado College, Cornell University, ECOLOGIA, Denison University, Fairfield University, Green Mountain College, Middlebury College, Norwich University, Oregon State University, Policy Research Center for Environment and Economy – China, Ramapo College of New Jersey, Royal Roads University, Sidwell Friends School, Sonoma State University, Syracuse University, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences, University of North Carolina, University of San Diego, University of Washington, among others. Three papers presented at the 2012 Half the World Symposium were published in a special issue of ASIANetwork Exchange: A Journal for Asian Studies in the Liberal Arts, the peer-review journal of the ASIANetwork. HWS Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies and Director of the Asian Environmental Studies Initiative and Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Darrin Magee worked in collaboration with ASIANetwork Exchange editors Lisa Trivedi and Erin McCarthy to edit the special issue.

The work of AES Initiative faculty has also enriched the HWS Center for Global Education office through various study abroad programs, including China, Taiwan and Vietnam. Each with their own focus, these study abroad programs offer HWS students unique experiences with Asian scientific, cultural and political dimensions, which greatly influence Asian response to local and global environmental crises. HWS has partnered with Peking University in Beijing, China; Nanjing University in Nanjing, China; and National Chengchi University in Taipei, Taiwan.

East Asian Studies is especially relevant to environmental studies at HWS and other institutions of higher education due to the dynamic local and global forces impacting this region. It is impossible to seriously study global environmental issues and the challenges of sustainable development without considering the rapid economic and population growth of East Asia. Globalization has rapidly industrialized this region and attracted millions to mega-cities. The AES Initiative at HWS is innovative in its breadth in a liberal arts education, but it is also comes at a time when East Asia could incorporate more sustainable development principles, thereby greatly impacting quality of life and the environment in Asia and the globe for decades, if not centuries.

Even though the grant from the Luce Foundation has now been expended, AES faculty continue to pursue several of the initiatives launched under the grant including speaker series and student research. We are also exploring the possibility of hosting curriculum workshops and symposia (including student symposia) in collaboration with other liberal arts institutions with strong Environmental Studies and Asian Studies programs that have received funding from the Luce Foundation.