Rice University's Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning (CERCL) has awarded a $2000 course development grant to Chao Center's Ka-Kin Cheuk for his new course, ASIA 305: Ethnographic Research In/Of Houston Asia, to be taught in the Fall 2020 semester. The course, which offers Distribution II credit, will provide students comprehensive training in ethnographic research, analysis, and writing in/of the contemporary Asia in a global context, with a special focus on Houston. Grant funds will be used to support student travel to a Sikh temple, a Zoroastraian temple, and a Chinese Buddhist temple within the Houston community for ethnographic field work as well as to give a student research symposium on campus at the conclusion of the course. The symposium will give students of the course an opportunity to present their ethnographic research before a panel of Asian American community members who can provide students with insider perspectives. Additionally, course participants will host a campus tour for members of the Asian-American communities with which they have studied during the course of the semester.
"It is not just about how we write ethnography about them," Cheuk said, "but also that we give the Asian-American communities an opportunity to see how students study at Rice."
The CERCL initiative seeks to promote and advance models and practices of an expansive approach to leadership both on and off the Rice University campus through innovative programming meant to enhance attention and approaches to addressing the socio-cultural, historical and political dimensions of life in Houston.