Strategic Vision

The ASDP Alumni Chapter was established to help ASDP program alumni support the Asian Studies Development Program in its efforts to enhance undergraduate teaching and learning about Asian cultures and societies, and to support the East-West Center (EWC) in its mission of contributing to the realization of a just, prosperous, and equitable Asia-Pacific community.

The primary activity of the Chapter is to assist with planning and hosting the annual ASDP National Conference. Hosted each spring, the National Conference is a supportive and congenial forum for undergraduate educators and graduate students to share research and pedagogical insights. The general meeting of the ASDP Alumni Chapter is held annually in conjunction with the Conference.

The ASDP Alumni works in-conjunction with the East-West Center's strategic plan's 5-pillars:  

• Developing and Equipping Leaders

• Convening Impactful Dialogues

• Partnering with the Pacific Islands

• Fostering Environmental Solutions

• Supporting Good Governance

To this end, the ASDP Alumni Organization supports these goals through academic conferences and workshops that equip undergraduate educators at American colleges and universities with the ability to infuse their curricula and programs in the following ways:

•  Developing and equipping leaders, in this case undergraduate students, with the skills to bring about impactful change in the 21st century. As American colleges and universities become ever more international in their student bodies, the skill sets and knowledge gained from participating in ASDP sponsored events and educational opportunities become central in bridging divides between East and West. 

• Convening impactful dialogues, again, by participating in ASDP institutes and NEH supported workshops and seminars, faculty are able to act as both mediators and as knowledge guides in fostering discussions between students in their classrooms. The ability to function in the classroom is a direct result of participation in ASDP sponsored events. 

• Further, by participating in ASDP Alumni Association workshops and the annual national conference, the skill sets developed by educators and researchers in their classrooms can be distributed more widely to other alumni of ASDP programs in both a formal and informal session. 

• Supporting good governance is furthered by instructors having the ability to foster global civic literacy. 

All of these goals help instructors contextual U.S. foreign policy and national security issues in the Trans-Pacific realm.