{"id":166077,"date":"2022-09-27T15:33:47","date_gmt":"2022-09-28T01:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=166077"},"modified":"2022-09-27T16:32:21","modified_gmt":"2022-09-28T02:32:21","slug":"1m-grant-launch-indo-pacific-affairs-initiative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2022\/09\/27\/1m-grant-launch-indo-pacific-affairs-initiative\/","title":{"rendered":"$1M<\/abbr> grant to launch Indo-Pacific affairs initiative at UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

\"U<\/p>\n

A three-year $1-million grant will launch a new Indo-Pacific Affairs Initiative and establish a Center for Indo-Pacific Affairs within the College of Arts, Languages, and Letters<\/a> at the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M\u0101noa. The federal funding was secured by U.S. Sen.<\/abbr> Mazie Hirono<\/strong> to provide education, training and professional development opportunities for students and U.S. government personnel to better meet national security challenges in the Indo-Pacific region.<\/p>\n

The UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa Center for Indo-Pacific Affairs will be one of the first academic institutions in the world to focus specifically on the Indo-Pacific region. Changing strategic dynamics have recently led policymakers to expand their thinking beyond traditional definitions of “East Asia” to consider a much more expansive “Indo-Pacific” that stretches from the west coast of the U.S. to the west coast of India. Throughout the past several years, many countries, including the U.S., have released Indo-Pacific strategies that reflect their recognition of the importance of this region.<\/p>\n

“The expertise about the Indo-Pacific region that already exists at the university and across Oʻahu<\/span> is virtually unparalleled. And, as an integral part of that region, UH<\/abbr> is uniquely positioned to educate our future leaders in the kinds of historically-grounded, culturally-aware perspectives that can help ensure that U.S. policies and personnel contribute to the peace and well-being of the entire region,” said Cathryn Clayton<\/strong>, chair of the Department of Asian Studies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Center for Indo-Pacific Affairs will be the institutional hub of the broader Indo-Pacific Initiative, which will help to bring together experts and opportunities from the School of Pacific and Asian Studies<\/a> and across the M\u0101noa campus. Other goals include the expansion of course offerings, research and Indo-Pacific affairs co-curricular programming, including strengthening the master\u2019s in Asian international affairs<\/a> program that was launched by the Asian studies department in 2019. Professional development opportunities will also be made available to students at the BA<\/abbr> and MA<\/abbr> levels.<\/p>\n

Kristi Govella<\/strong>, an assistant professor in the Asian studies department who will be the director of the new center said, “Through this new Center for Indo-Pacific Affairs, we will help to bridge the gap between the best scholarly research and timely policy-relevant analysis, while also providing transformative opportunities for students to engage with regional affairs.”<\/p>\n

The funding will also provide for professional skills workshops, a visiting experts program, online outreach and help to enhance the visibility of the work UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa students and scholars are already engaged in the field.<\/p>\n

“Importantly, this initiative will enable UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa to initiate a pilot program that will provide financial support for our students who are engaged in unpaid internships at organizations with a focus on Indo-Pacific issues,” said UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa Provost Michael Bruno<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa has long been recognized as a leading university for Asian Studies and Pacific Islands Studies<\/a>. The launch of the UH<\/abbr> Indo-Pacific Affairs Initiative comes on the heels of news in August that UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa was awarded seven Title VI<\/abbr> International Education grants<\/a> totaling $7 million over a four-year grant cycle from the U.S. Department of Education to support language instruction, teacher training, curriculum development, outreach and library collections related to Asia and the Pacific.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The grant will provide education, training and professional development opportunities for students and U.S. government personnel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[777,1471,1538,470,258,9],"class_list":["post-166077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-news","tag-asian-studies","tag-college-of-arts-languages-and-letters","tag-pacific-island-studies","tag-pacific-islands","tag-school-of-pacific-and-asian-studies","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166077"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":166107,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166077\/revisions\/166107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}