What is Campus Asia?

What is Campus Asia?

The five-year Campus Asia pilot project was launched in 2011 through an agreement between the governments of Japan, China and South Korea, with the aim of fostering exchange between universities in the three countries. It was subsequently decided that the Campus Asia program would continue for a further five years, starting from 2016; the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Tokyo, Yuanpei College of Peking University, and the College of Liberal Studies of Seoul National University all had their applications to participate in the program approved.

Between now and the academic year 2020, the University of Tokyo’s College of Arts and Sciences will be striving, through the holding of joint lectures, summer programs and winter programs in collaboration with Peking University and Seoul National University, and through the holding of activities such as the East Asia Student Conference , to train “co-creative leaders ” who possess both a thorough understanding of the history and current situation of the East Asian region and the ability to think for themselves, and who are capable of developing solutions to global issues through interdisciplinary, international collaboration with others.

Program Objectives and Overview

The Campus Asia Program aims to enhance liberal arts education and train human resources through cooperation among three universities in Japan, China and Korea with advanced liberal arts education as the core of their curriculums (specifically, the University of Tokyo, Peking University, and Seoul National University). The three universities have joined forces to create an Asian Regional Experts Sub-Major in order to conduct activities to improve and ensure the quality of their liberal arts education. The purpose of this program is to train individuals who are competent in understanding diverse knowledge beyond disciplinary and regional boundaries, who take into consideration historical and current issues in East Asia (in Japan, China, and Korea in particular), and who are able to engage in solving global issues in cooperation with people from different backgrounds.

The Campus Asia Program has two pillars: one is a student exchange program, the “Asian Regional Experts Sub-Major,” with its concomitant joint lectures; the other, the activities related to assurance and improvement of the quality of liberal arts education.

The first pillar — that is, the Asian Regional Experts Sub-Major — is a specially-designed program of events for students of the three participating universities, such as joint lectures involving mutual exchange of faculty members, summer school programs, and conferences. These activities serve as the core element of educational exchange and, in combination with the lectures and seminars available as part of the liberal arts education offerings at each university, form the Asian Regional Experts Sub-Major, contributing to the training of collaborative creators and leaders with firm roots in the East Asia region.

Building on the foundation of educational exchange achieved through the Asian Regional Experts Sub-Major, the second pillar of the program aims to conduct activities to ensure and improve the liberal arts education at each of the participating universities, through shared learning by the exchange of faculty members and staff, class evaluations by the exchange students, sharing the feedback concerning their results, and the holding of conferences as well as faculty development activities organized by faculty members of the three universities. The results of these activities will be used to further enhance the lectures and seminars offered for the Asian Regional Experts Sub-Major and to improve liberal arts education at each of the three universities.

Program Concepts

Strengthen high-level liberal arts education and train co-creative leaders through Japan – China – South Korea liberal arts education alliance

• Spreading awareness of the liberal arts education that represents an important characteristic of the University of Tokyo to China and South Korea, and using collaboration between Japanese, Chinese and South Korean universities to take liberal arts education to an even higher level
• Bringing together faculty members and students from different regions on the same campus to foster the creation of an international environment
• Training co-creative leaders who possess wide-ranging knowledge (rather than only possessing knowledge in a narrow, specialist sphere) and a global perspective, understand both the commonalities and the diversity of the East Asia region, are capable of collaborating effectively with people from different backgrounds, and who in the future will become the East Asia region’s leaders, playing an active role on the global stage

Initiative for quality assurance and quality enhancement

Enhancement of liberal arts education

• Enabling faculty members to learn from one another through assignment to teach classes at other universities
• Provision of feedback by students
• Implementation of joint faculty development activities that bring together Japanese, Chinese and South Korean faculty members
• Sharing of information regarding criteria for recognition of credit, and establishment of common criteria
• Mutual exchange and joint training of administrative staff between the three universities

Quality assurance

• Establishment of a Program Steering Committee within the participating universities
• Establishment of faculty member steering committees within each of the three universities
• External evaluation of the program by a third-party committee that includes external experts

Strengthening of student support systems

• Establishment of administrative systems and student support systems that support the English, Chinese and Korean languages
• Implementation of career guidance for Japanese, Chinese and South Korean students by inviting government officials and private-sector experts to give career-related lectures

Training Co-Creative Leaders

The Campus Asia program aims to train co-creative leaders; in more concrete terms, this means the following types of human talent:

1. Researchers or elite professionals who, building on their knowledge of the history and current circumstances of the East Asia region, are able to take their own specialist expertise as a foundation for collaborating effectively with others to solve problems.
2. Researchers who, while taking one of the regions that make up East Asia as their area of specialist expertise, are capable of engaging in effective dialog with other researchers and experts to develop inter-disciplinary approaches to global issues.