Overview: In 1997, Texas A&M embarked upon a comprehensive evaluation and planning program with the aim of securing recognition as a consensus "Top 10" public university by the year 2020.  As part of this “Vision 2020” plan, Texas A&M is in the midst of an ambitious program to add approximately 450 tenured and tenure-track faculty members by 2008 to strengthen teaching and research, with approximately 230 already hired.  Currently, more than 80 percent of the 2,500 faculty members hold earned doctoral degrees and more than 300 hold endowed professorships or chairs.  The faculty at Texas A&M include winners of the Nobel Prize, the National Medal of Science, the Pulitzer Prize, the World Food Prize and the Wolf Prize, with 25 holding membership in the prestigious National Academy of Sciences or the National Academy of Engineering.  Clearly, with a faculty of this caliber, providing quality education to its students is a top priority.  Additionally, Texas A&M serves as an educational resource for the Bryan-College Station community, engaging local public school students and teachers in enriching educational experiences.  The Institute for Pacific Asia has helped to create and support several initiatives which have specifically focused on educating faculty, students, and community members about the Asian region. 

Selected Projects: 

Virtual Science Museum of China: Virtual Science Museums of China (VSMC), sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a World Summit Award Winner during the Tunis Phase of World Summit on the Information Society, is the first and largest cluster of Virtual Science Museums in China. More than 45 million people have visited the site by the end of 2005.

In the NSF-sponsored Virtual Animal Behavior Inquiry (VABI) and Virtual Ecological Inquiry (VEI) projects, scientists and IT engineers from CNIC, TAMU and CCRCGP collaborate on bringing animal behavior research and ecological research to the public.

Texas China Fulbright Project: The Departments of Educational Psychology and Geography at Texas A&M University, in partnership with the Institute for Pacific Asia, with funding from the US Department of Education, conducted a “Seminar for World History and World Geography Teachers on Chinese History and Culture.” The China Seminar was designed to integrate geographic, ethnographic and recent historical information about Chinese society to area studies by infusing accurate information into 6th, 9th and 11th grade world history and geography curricula.  Teachers learned about Chinese archeological, ethnic and cultural history and 20th century Chinese society. 

The Seminar lasted 4-weeks and consisted of classroom and field experiences, cultural visits, observation of teaching processes, small group discussions, and curriculum development. Participants visited Beijing, Xian, Chengdu and Shanghai. The National Academy of Educational Administration (NAEA) in Beijing served as primary partner.

U.S. Department of Education, Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program Grant:Texas A&M University continues to strengthen its educational ties to China with the addition of a two-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

The $178,000 grant from the Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program calls for language courses in Mandarin Chinese, additional courses in Japanese, and new area courses on China.  The College of Liberal Arts will deliver all but one of the new courses.  A course on the geography of China will be taught by the Geography Department in the College of Geosciences. 

The language courses began in the fall of 2005.  The six new area courses scheduled for fall of 2006 include Social and Demographic Change in China, Chinese Popular Culture from 1600, Imperial China, Geography of China, Religions and Philosophies of China, and Communism in Asia.   

Julia Kirk Blackwelder, former Liberal Arts Associate Dean for Undergraduate and International Programs and member of the International Programs Enhancement Coordination Committee, said that the college has already matched the grant funding and intends to continue the courses after the grant ends.  The grant also called for the creation of an Asian studies advisory group to advance the development of Asian studies at Texas A&M.  The grant runs from July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2007. 

Richard Nader, then-director of the Institute for Pacific Asia at Texas A&M, provided the leadership in preparing the grant application.  He said the grant is another step in the University’s continuing effort to build capacity in Asia and, specifically, China. 

“Texas A&M has a growing relationship with China in research and academic exchanges, as evidenced by our more than 450 faculty with scholarly interests in China,” Nader said.  “Last year approximately 700 Chinese students studied on our campus and our 10 colleges hosted about 145 visiting Chinese scholars.”