Undergrad education, innovative research at U of T's Asian Institute get boost from anonymous donor

The University of Toronto's Asian Institute will help more students conduct research abroad and expand its innovative teaching, research and engagement methods – all thanks to an anonymous gift.

“Students in our undergraduate major will benefit from a newly enhanced curriculum with a significant experiential component, allowing them to conduct primary research in Asia and on Asian topics closer to home,” Professor Joshua Barker said. “Graduate students will be integrated into a community of interdisciplinary scholars working on Asia, and will get new support for their Asia research endeavours.”

The former director of the Asian Institute and now vice-dean of graduate education and program reviews at the Faculty of Arts and Science, Barker made the comments at an event held to celebrate the anonymous gift. The  $5 million donation will launch the Asian Pathways Research Lab and endow the Richard Charles Lee Directorship.

“The Munk School is delighted to welcome the Asian Pathways Research Lab and its mission to explore migration and mobility issues, which are of crucial importance in our globe today,” said Professor Stephen Toope, director of the Munk School of Global Affairs, adding the donation “will enable the Munk School to strengthen its teaching, student experience and research in Asian studies.”

Opening up new opportunities for U of T students to study abroad is one of the goals President Meric Gertler described in the recently released Three Priorities: A Discussion Paper.

“The opportunity to live and study in a foreign setting is one of the widely acknowledged ways for students to develop and expand their horizons by deepening their understanding of and appreciation for other cultures and places,” Gertler wrote.

Read more about the Three Priorities

Stanley Chia, a second-year international relations and history student, attended the event and told The Varsity he is looking forward to the experiential learning that the donation will fund.

“Since some of us have never travelled to Asia before, I believe that the gift of $5 million will go a long way in aiding us in our pursuits to go to Asia [for research].” (Read The Varsity's article.)

The Asian Pathways Research Lab, founded by Barker, will focus on Asian migration and mobility as seen through Asian life histories and experiences. By collecting oral histories and conducting ethnographic field research, student researchers will be trained in qualitative research methods through a new fourth-year course within the contemporary asian studies program and will be prepared to work on the Lab’s ongoing research projects.

As it continues to “facilitate research and the dissemination of results, the Lab will establish and maintain ongoing collaborations with a range of partners at the city, national and international levels,” Barker said.

The gift is named in honour of the late Richard Charles Lee, who was trade ambassador for Hong Kong and served on the governing councils of the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

“I think it is more than fitting that it’s named for my father, particularly because he believed that the 21st century is the Asian century, even though he never lived to see it,” said Senator Vivienne Poy, Lee’s daughter and a former chancellor of U of T.

Students will be given assistance with ethics protocols, travel support and contacts with community partners as they acquire new historical and social understandings of Asian mobility.

The student, faculty and community-based research will also provide U of T instructors the opportunity to integrate primary research on Asian topics into their course curricula. Data collected by the Lab will be made available to researchers in a digital archive and to the public through selections and summaries.

“This extraordinary gift to establish the Richard Charles Lee Directorship will create a constant hum and excitement about student research activity in the corridors of the Asian Institute, which in turn will attract new kinds of engagement from the community at large,” said Joseph Wong, interim director of the Asian Institute and the Ralph and Roz Halbert Professor of Innovation.