Dear Colleagues:
Welcome back to campus – I hope that you have had a relaxing and productive summer and that the new academic year is off to a terrific start for all of you!
CEAPS had an exciting summer.
In early June, three of us from the Urbana-Champaign campus and three colleagues from the University of Illinois Chicago campus traveled to Taiwan to visit five of our partner universities in the University Academic Alliance in Taiwan (UAAT). We had an opportunity to visit with students from Urbana-Champaign and Chicago who had received UAAT scholarships, and we participated in a day-long “Frontiers in Mandarin and Language Education Symposium” at National Tsing Hua University (NTHU). It was a particular joy to connect with Urbana-Champaign alumni who now teach at Taiwanese universities. Recruitment for the summer 2026 UAAT scholarship program is underway, and we hope that you will help us spread news about this opportunity with your students! We also look forward to welcoming colleagues from NTHU to campus in mid-October for the formal opening of the UAAT Mandarin Language Program Liaison Office.
At the end of June, we hosted a National Consortium for Teaching about Asia (NCTA) foundational seminar. Prof. Jennifer Bergmark and Prof. Ethan Segal (Michigan State University), supported by CEAPS Outreach Coordinator Alex Chun, hosted eleven K-12 teachers for a week, guiding them through the history of East Asia with a particular focus on art and literature. Several other CEAPS affiliates provided focused lectures or guided enrichment activities. The teachers learned about the Chinese scroll collection at the University Library, participated in a tea ceremony at Japan House, and explored the Asian art collection at the Krannert Art Museum. We are looking forward to hosting another foundational seminar next summer and to exploring other possibilities for our faculty to participate in the NCTA program.
Our AY25-26 programming will begin with our Open House and Mid-Autumn Festival Celebration on Friday, September 5th, from 1:00 - 3:00 p.m. in 306 Coble Hall. We hope to see many of you there!
Our first invited talk will be a virtual talk on Friday, September 19th, with Prof. Lori Yue from the Columbia University School of Business, who will present on “Organizational Nationalism and Computational Analysis.” And our first brown bag talk will be the following Friday, September 26th, in 306 Coble Hall, where Prof. Sarah Park Dahlen and Michelle Lê will speak on “Keeping Afloat: Water, War, and Vietnamese Diaspora in Picture Books."
Please do visit the CEAPS website and make note of this semester’s events!
CEAPS has a 60-year tradition of supporting teaching, research, cultural programming, and outreach related to East Asia and the Pacific on campus and in the broader community. I am always eager to hear your thoughts about events and programming that the Center might help facilitate. And if you are aware of any new (or not-so-new) faculty members on campus who should be CEAPS affiliates, please do let us know so that we can reach out to them.
Best wishes, and looking forward to seeing you soon!
Matt Winters
Director, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies