Kennesaw State University is upgrading its minor in Asian studies this fall to the first bachelor of arts degree with a major in Asian Studies offered by the University System of Georgia.
W. Ken Harmon, Kennesaw State’s provost and vice president for academic affairs, said in a statement, that the Asian Studies major “reflects Kennesaw State’s continuing commitment to global education and to the strategic development of academic programs that position our students to compete in a global economic and political arena in which Asia is playing an ever-increasing role.”
The Board of Regents approved the new degree on March 11 with the understanding that it will allow students majoring in Asia Studies to concentrate on Asia culture, Asian history and politics, Asian business or teaching English as a foreign language.
The curriculum includes 123 credit hours of disciplinary courses, beginning in the lower division with Chinese, Japanese or Korean language and culture, research methods ad three electives from among nine academic subjects.
Upper division courses include a comprehensive course on understanding Asia, a choice of history courses focused on ancient to pre-modern China, modern China and Japan or modern India and South Asia, intercultural communication, business courses and a study abroad and/or internship. Students also will choose four courses in their area of concentration as well as one course from each of the other three concentrations.
Recommendations by a 21-member Asia Studies Advisory Board, organized by Dr. May Hongmei Gao, coordinator of Asian Studies at Kennesaw State and professor of communications, contributed to the design of the new Asian Studies major. The board also supervises Kennesaw State’s ASIA-USA Partnership Opportunities (SAUPO) symposium.
Members of the advisory board include:
Mr. Ani Agnihotri, Chair, USA India Business Summit
Ms. Estrella Cramer, Asia Resource Group, United Parcel Service Inc.
Mr. Sandeep Dadlani, Executive Vice President & Head of Americas, Infosys Ltd
Mr. Vikram Das, Managing Director Audit, Grant Thornton
Mr. Yoshi Domoto, Executive Director, Japan-America Society of Georgia
Ms. Patricia Decker, U.S. Operations Director, Habitat for Humanity
Mr. Jorge Fernandez, Vice President, Global Commerce, Metro Atlanta Chamber
Mr. Alex Gregory, President & CEO, YKK Corporation of America
Mr. Randy Knott, Senior Vice President, Foster Wheeler
Ms. Yonni Kim, Arnall Golden Gregory, LLP
Ms. Lucy Lu, Global Managing Partner, Lucy Lu & Associates
Dr. John McIntyre, Director, Georgia Tech CIBER
Mr. C.N. Madhu Madhusudan, Founder & CEO, VectorSpan Inc.
Mr. George Mui, White House Initiative on AAPIs; U.S. Dept. of Commerce-MBDA
Mr. Jim McGee, Senior Director of Government Relations, Huawei Technologies USA, Inc.
Mr. Anh Nguyen, Data Dissemination Specialist, U.S. Census Bureau
Ms. Masae Okura, Partner, Fisher Broyles
Dr. Penelope B. Prime, Professor of Economics, Georgia State University
Ms. Shelly Riera, Vice President, Brookdale Senior Living
Mr. Frank Su, President, Kids’R’Kids China
Mr. Li Wong, Publisher & CEO, Georgia Asian Times
Mr. Henry Yu, Executive Director, Asian Investors Consortium
Ms. Ying Springna Zhao, Special Advisor to the Governor’s Office of Alabama
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