U.S. Dept. of Education renews grants supporting CU area studies programs

Cornell's four national resource centers in Asian and Latin American Studies will receive substantial three-year grants from the U.S. Department of Education totaling nearly $3.5 million.

Fukushima Keido Roshi, master and head abbot at the Tofuku-ji Temple in Kyoto, Japan, gives an East Asia Program-funded calligraphy demonstration March 16 at the Johnson Museum. Frank DiMeo/University Photography

For the coming academic year, Cornell's area studies programs for East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and Latin America will receive $575,415 in federal funds to serve as National Resource Centers (NRCs). An additional Department of Education grant of $546,000 will support 34 fellowships for graduate students in Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) programs in East, South and Southeast Asian, Latin American and European studies for the coming year.

Housed in the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies in Uris Hall, the cross-disciplinary programs support hundreds of courses across campus, among them modern foreign languages and international studies, including history, politics, religion, literature, culture, economics, anthropology, agriculture, management and labor economics. The area studies programs also bring to campus visiting fellows from around the world, publish books and co-sponsor art exhibits, concerts and film screenings. In addition, they fund graduate fellowships and travel grants, language instruction and collaborative research and help the Cornell Library maintain relevant collections.

Since 1961, the Einaudi Center has fostered area and comparative studies at Cornell. "By cooperating and pooling our resources," said David Lelyveld, the center's executive director, "we are able to develop mutually supportive initiatives and creative intellectual projects."

"We're an advocate for the study of these great cultures and societies both at Cornell and nationally," said Laurie Damiani, associate director for administration and director of outreach for the East Asia Program. The centers, which apply for the funding every three years, depend on it to keep course offerings current and programs staffed, active and growing, Damiani said.

With help from such funding, for example, the East Asia Program was able to bring to campus this spring Fukushima Keido Roshi, zen master, head abbot of the Tofuku-ji Temple in Kyoto and leader of the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism. Fukushima led zazen, a sitting meditation session, and gave lectures and calligraphy demonstrations for the campus and local communities in Uris Hall and at the Johnson Museum of Art. A master calligrapher, he rendered on paper several koans -- verbal puzzles that students of Zen Buddhism try to solve as a means to enlightenment -- and presented them to his hosts as gifts.

The grants continue to help support Cornell University Library's Asia collections. Considered by scholars to be among the largest and best integrated in North America, the collections' holdings of more than a million printed volumes chronicle the growth of cultures throughout the Asian continent since the beginning of civilization. The grants ensure that top researchers in international studies will continue to plumb the collections for their research and make recommendations on how to maintain and add to them.

Cornell's national resource centers competed for the Title VI grants with programs at universities around the country. For details, visit the web site http://ed.gov/offices/OPE/HEP/iegps/list84015.pdf/.