Abstract
In this article, we seek to establish what liberal education means in the Asia of today by examining different institutions in India, Japan, South Korea, and China. In particular, we have analyzed fourteen such programs and identified certain commonalities, as well as important differences, particularly involving governance structure. We then offer some insights gleaned from the first three years of one of the largest such undertakings, Yale-NUS College in Singapore. We conclude that partnerships with U.S. institutions offer expertise and prestige, but the spread of liberal education in Asia will also depend on change within the relatively rigid but prestigious public systems that dominate most education in the region. The curriculum should embrace the local culture but put it in conversation with broader trends both in Asia and the West. In order for these institutions to thrive, faculty and students must be free to teach, study, and conduct research on controversial subjects without political interference.
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©2015 by De Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Editors’ Note
- The Counter Narrative: Critical Analysis of Liberal Education in Global Context
- Liberal Education in Asia: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities
- Whose Cosmopolitanism Is It Anyway? Musings from the Global Academy
- Reading with Borders: Text, Context, and Comparative Literature from Korea
- Shifting Proximities: A Case for Global Reading in US Higher Education
- Americans Abroad: Melville and Pacific Perspectives
- Transposing Pedagogic Boundaries: Global America in an Australian Context
- Book Reviews
- Masuda Hajimu: Cold War Crucible: The Korean Conflict and the Postwar World
- Christopher McKnight Nichols: Promise and Peril: America at the Dawn of a Global Age
- Gaia Vince: Adventures in the Anthropocene
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Editors’ Note
- The Counter Narrative: Critical Analysis of Liberal Education in Global Context
- Liberal Education in Asia: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities
- Whose Cosmopolitanism Is It Anyway? Musings from the Global Academy
- Reading with Borders: Text, Context, and Comparative Literature from Korea
- Shifting Proximities: A Case for Global Reading in US Higher Education
- Americans Abroad: Melville and Pacific Perspectives
- Transposing Pedagogic Boundaries: Global America in an Australian Context
- Book Reviews
- Masuda Hajimu: Cold War Crucible: The Korean Conflict and the Postwar World
- Christopher McKnight Nichols: Promise and Peril: America at the Dawn of a Global Age
- Gaia Vince: Adventures in the Anthropocene