HELP [ARCHIVED CATALOG] Minor in Asian Studies Print-Friendly Page Add to Portfolio

Coordinator
George Brown, SWC 112-G, (724) 738-2345, george.brown@sru.edu

Faculty
Kundan Bhatia, George Brown, Xianfeng Chen, Margaret Denning, Srinivasa Mani, Alison McNeal, J. Sunita Peacock, Armand Policicchio, Carolyn Prorok, Jialing Wang, Junko Yamamoto, and visiting professors from China, India, Japan, and Korea. 

The Asian Studies minor offers students the opportunity to gain a working knowledge of the countries East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.  About forty percent of the people residing on the globe live in Asia, including China, and India, the two most populous countries in the world.  Asia also contains the most rapidly industrializing and fastest growing economies in the world: by 2050 China will be the world’s largest economy, Japan will be among the top five global economies, and India will also take it’s place as one of the greatest economic powers of the century.  Asia is important as well because it is home to several of the world’s core civilizations with distinctive cultures, well developed social institutions, highly developed religious and philisophical traditions, rich and complex languages and literatures, and artistic and architectural traditions that go back in continuously evolving lines for over thirty centuries. Asia is also important politically; it is a place of dynamic political change and unresolved political conflicts with enormous consequence for the United States (North and South Korea, China and Taiwan, India and Pakistan, China and Japan, etc.).  The Asian Studies minor provides a valuable focus for majors in many fields. Business majors will find a minor in East Asian Studies particularly attractive to future employers who are already doing business in the region or who wish to begin trade there. Future teachers and social workers as well as health and fitness professionals will find the background useful in their work with the increasing Asian population in the United States (Asians and Pacific Islanders are the fastest growing minority in America). Students with majors in the humanities and social sciences will find the minor a valuable balance to the largely Western content and methodologies that characterize their fields of study. Future teachers and social workers as well as health and fitness professionals will find the background useful in their work with the increasing Asian population in the United States. (Asian and Pacific Islanders are the fastest growing minority in America.)  The Asian Studies Minor offers language training and exchange opportunities that will enable students to live and work successfully in a global society.