T. J. Lah of Yonsei University speaks at a roundtable discussion, during the Bard CEP conference "Water, Forests, and Communities in Asia." photo Emily Krohn
Bard CEP Forum on Environment and Asia From January 31 to February 2, the Bard Center for Environmental Policy (Bard CEP) hosted a three-day conference on improving the integration of Asian and environmental studies. With support from the Henry Luce Foundation, Bard College is exploring opportunities for intensive research, experiential education, service learning, and student and faculty exchange partnerships in China, Japan, and South Korea. The conference, “Water, Forests, and Communities in Asia,” focused on how field experiences, cross-university connections, and NGO partnerships inform higher education curricula in Asian studies, environmental studies, and other relevant disciplines across undergraduate and graduate programs.
Bard Conference Promotes Liberal Education in Russia “In the end, liberal education is probably the best antidote for the most dangerous of human experiences, which is boredom,” Leon Botstein, president of Bard College, told delegates at “Liberal Education in Russia and the World,” a conference that took place at the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Science, St. Petersburg State University (Smolny College). “If we are successful,” continued Botstein, who was keynote speaker, “there will be fewer people who are angry with their life because of its predictable, uniform, and boring character.” The October conference was aimed at helping develop the liberal arts in the former Soviet Union—a country where the concept of a liberal education is still a novel idea and whose entire higher education system is designed around specialization and lack of individual choice and student interaction. It was held in partnership with the Smolny Center for Liberal Education and Bard’s Center for Civic Engagement, with the support of the Open Society Foundations. More than 100 participants attended, including representatives of Russian institutions of higher education, as well as educators from the former Soviet Union, United States, Europe, and Central Asia. The conference played out against the backdrop of the trial and subsequent sentencing—for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”—of members of the feminist punk rock band Pussy Riot for staging a protest in a Moscow cathedral denouncing the Russian Orthodox Church’s support of President Vladimir Putin. Their treatment and subsequent two-year sentence was a harsh price to pay for expressing an opinion, participants noted, and a seeming irony that went counter to the heart of what the conference was all about: promoting a more liberal, less restrictive approach to education in Russia. Bard speakers included Jonathan Becker, vice president and dean for international affairs and civic engagement. He told delegates, “We’re not trying
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Faculty, students, and staff from neighboring institutions were invited to explore the question: what are the opportunities for field education and East-West partnerships to better merge Asian studies with environmental awareness? A keynote address by T. J. Lah of Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, “Green Growth Policy in Korea,” and welcoming remarks from Bard President Leon Botstein opened the conference. Other highlights included a roundtable discussion moderated by Associate Professor of History Robert Culp and Assistant Professor of Political Studies Kenneth Haig on how to meet environmental challenges in Asia, and a talk by Machiko Nishino of Biwako Seikei Sport College, former head of integrated analyses at Lake Biwa Environmental Research Institute, on the restoration of Lake Biwa in Japan. This keynote speech was followed by discussions on “slow water” in Oaxaca, environmental policy in Myanmar, sustainable land management in Kyrgyzstan, dam-building in the eastern Himalayas, and other environmental projects in China, Japan, and South Korea. Other keynote talks included Hu Tao of the World Resources Institute on environmental policy in China; Chris Coggins of Bard College at Simon’s Rock: The Early College on feng shui forests in China; and Jon Schwartz, section chief of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, on ecosystem services and the New York City Watershed. Graduate students and Professor Monique Segarra of Bard CEP also led a panel discussion on integrated lake management. Students presented two North American lake management scenarios—Lake Ontario and Lake Champlain—and explored how these compare to international lake management systems, in particular restoration projects at Lake Biwa and Lake Poyang (the largest body of fresh water in China). The case studies analyzed approaches that might be applied to the waters of East Asia and presented pivotal discussion topics for global water management: prioritization, adaptive management, and the balance between community, science, and policy. to transform the whole education system, but work with partners to create an alternative, which we believe leads to engaged citizens and an effective form of communication.” Becker also spoke of “forming partnerships to . . . adapt what Bard does to the local conditions to try to promote a different type of education, which we believe is important.” Voldemar Tomusk, director for policy and evaluation for the International Higher Education Support Program of the Open Society Institute in Budapest, discussed the university’s social mission and the importance of knowledge. “Knowledge, after nearly a thousand years, is divorced from inwardness and literally dehumanized. This we see in many parts of higher education. People tend to believe that knowing or learning anything does not make much sense because knowledge is changing, is moving around . . . and we all become knowledge managers, without actually knowing much of anything.” Other panelists included Aleksei Kudrin, dean, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Smolny College; Andrei Zorin, professor at Oxford University and academic programs director, Faculty of Government Management, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow; Ilya Kukulin, National Research University, Higher School of Economics, Moscow; Svetlana Karas, rector, Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Moscow; Thomas Rommel, rector and provost, ECLA of Bard, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Berlin; and Andrew Wachtel, president, American University of Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan. Now in its 15th year, Smolny College was the first institution in the Russian Federation to be granted a license from the Russian Ministry of Education to award degrees in the program of “arts and humanities,” the Russian equivalent of a liberal arts degree. Smolny works with other Russian liberal arts degree– granting institutes (an estimated 13 in total), and together, they lead an “academic methodological alliance” to “hone the craft of liberal arts education, student-centered learning and the interactive classroom.”