Bulletin Supplement Aug 1969

I. The Beg i nn i ng The Asian Workshop on Higher Education was the first of its kind in Asia. It was convened in response to the need increasingly felt by Asian universities and colleges for a thorough examination of the role of higher education in national development at a time of unprecedented advance in science and technology. A group of scholars and university administrators, constituting the Planning Committee for the Workshop, was brough t together in November 1968 in Hong Kong, under the auspices of the Council of Protestant Colleges and Universities of the U.S.A., to discuss the idea of a workshop on liberal arts education for Asian institutions of higher learning. The conference was held from 5th to 12th November, 1968 at this University. After careful consideration, the Committee came to the conclusion that such a workshop would meet an urgent need of universities and colleges in this area. Dr. Choh-Ming Li, Vice-Chancellor of the University, was elected Director of the Workshop, assisted by Prof. S.S. Hsueh as Associate Director and Mrs. Lilian Chang Lee as Executive Assistant. The Planning Committee comprised: Dr. J.W. Airan, India Dr. John M. Bevan, U.S.A. (Chairman) Dr. Cicero D. Calderon, The Philippines Dr. Kiyoko T. Cho, Japan Dr. Choh-Ming Li, Hong Kong Dr. Samuel H. Magill, U.S.A. Dr. O. Natohamidjojo, Indonesia Dr. Tae Sun Park, Korea Mr. Kentaro Shiozuki, Japan Dr. Eva I. Shipstone, India Dr. Amr ik Singh, India Dr. Augusto Tenmatay, The Philippines Dr. Mark Thelin, Taiwan Miss Margaret Valadian, Australia With its theme " A New Man for A New Society: Universities and Colleges as Agents of Change", the Workshop not only provided an effective forum t o exchange experience and to promote mutual understanding and co-operation, but much more importantly, to stimulate action in participating institutions in such areas as administration, curriculum, student services, methods of instruction and long-range planning—all in order to produce a new frame of mind among the educated in the modernizing process of contemporary Asia. The importance o f the subject and the seriousness of purpose led the Planning Committee to urge the chief executive or his executive deputy of each invited institution t o head a team composed of administrators and scholars including one senior and one junior member of different major disciplines. With the generous assistance of the Council of Protestant Colleges and Universities, the Workshop brought together more than 100 participants representin 20 universities and colleges in Asia. Individual educators fro m other countries were invited to attend; overseas educational organisations and foundations were also represented. II. The Concept of the Wo r k s h o p The central purpose of the Workshop is to provide an opportunit y for intensive study and discussion of ways and means for improving the quality of liberal arts education at the undergraduate level, and thus to stimulate action on the part of the participating institutions. There are all too few opportunities for faculty and administrative officers in Asian higher education to join in serious consideratio and unhurried discussion of the large issues of the educational policy—the issues which transcend a single discipline, a single institution, a single country. The hope of the Workshop is to foster such discussion and to invite outstanding scholars in the field of higher education to play a major role by bringing their experience and research findings into the heart of the Workshop discussions. A basic assumption of the Workshop is that every institution of higher learning must work out its own destiny by defining its problems, setting its priorities, and solving its problems in the light of its own traditions and resources. It follows that much of the emphasis of the Workshop falls upon the problem statements drawn up in advance by the participating institutions. Yet to isolate the educational discussion of a given institution from the rest of the academic world would be parochial in theory, unrealistic in fact, and grossly wasteful of academic talent. A second assumption of the Workshop, therefore, is that the sharing of insight and experience which is possible when twenty or so institutions participat e in the give-and-take of a residential Workshop can help each of them to resolve local problems in the light of new wisdom and perspective. I n sum, the Workshop endeavors to bring together theorists, activists, administrators, and scholars and t o do so in a setting free of the inhibitions of a single institution and free of the competing distractions of everyday campus life. — 2 —