About LIASE

Funded by the Henry Luce Foundation’s Initiative on Asian Studies and the Environment (LIASE) with supplemental support from the College, Vassar College’s LIASE program organizes a series of activities to promote the understanding of Asia in environmental studies. This includes annual summer research in China for collaboration between Chinese and American environmental scientists and students; summer language scholarship to encourage science students to learn Chinese; curriculum workshops to infuse Asian and environmental content into existing science, social science, and humanity courses and new course development; student conferences featuring their work; visits of Chinese scholars to Vassar; and more. The grant period is from Sept. 2017-Sept. 2021.

Director: Yu Zhou, professor of Geography and Asian Studies 2018-2019, yuzhou@vassar.edu

Administrative assistant: Kathleen Panebianco, kapanebianco@vassar.edu

Student intern: Boyu Guo (Art History), 2018-19.

Vassar LIASE documentary 2016 (click to watch video)

Asian Studies at Vassar

The Asian Studies Program at Vassar is one of the College’s first multidisciplinary programs.  Established in 1965 with six participating members, it has grown into a vibrant program with a distinguished faculty of twenty-two specialists from twelve departments. The program provides a rich curriculum for students to study both the traditional societies and cultures of Asia and their transformations in recent times. It also plays a vital role in infusing the study of Asia across Vassar’s curriculum.

Please visit https://asianstudies.vassar.edu/ for more information.

Environmental Studies at Vassar

The Environmental Studies (ENST) major is designed around the guiding principle that, at a liberal arts college, the study of the environment should involve all areas of the curriculum. At the same time, we believe that such a major develops best from a deep knowledge of individual disciplines.  ENST majors have their disciplinary homes all over the campus, for any Vassar department, from Biology to Art, may provide a concentration. Knowledge of the natural sciences and their methods is an important part of any study of the environment, therefore all ENST majors reach at least the intermediate level in Biology, Chemistry, or Earth Science. This perspective is then complemented by a disciplinary focus in either the arts and humanities or the social sciences. When ENST students come together in the program’s own multidisciplinary courses, they share their diverse disciplinary perspectives and, at the same time, learn how their different forms of knowledge gather around the field of environmental studies.

Please visit https://environmentalstudies.vassar.edu/ for more information.