Coordinator: James Collins, director, Center for Southeast Asian Studies
The primary functions of the center are the coordination of undergraduate and graduate Southeast Asia courses offered by various departments; development of specialized library and research facilities; facilitation of research by graduate students and faculty; promotion of exchange programs with universities in Southeast Asia; administration of operational programs concerned with Southeast Asia; sponsorship of a publication series on Southeast Asia; and promotion of outreach activities dealing with Southeast Asia.
The participating academic areas are anthropology, art history, foreign languages and literatures, geography, history, music, political science, and sociology.
Knowledge of Southeast Asia is useful for students who anticipate careers in government (particularly the foreign service), in secondary school teaching, and in international business or academic institutions which offer programs dealing directly or peripherally with Southeast Asia.
Any student completing the requirements for a baccalaureate degree may elect to complete the requirements for an interdisciplinary minor focusing on Southeast Asia, as listed below. Students electing this interdisciplinary minor should declare the minor at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies.
Requirements (19 or 21)
Students must include 10 semester hours of an intensively taught Southeast Asian language (Burmese, Indonesian, Tagalog, or Thai) or 12 semester hours of Chinese language. An additional 9 semester hours, from at least two departments, of Southeast Asian language or nonlanguage credit must be selected from the following list of courses.
Demonstrated competence in an approved Southeast Asian language may be substituted for the required language courses, decided on a case-by-case basis by the director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies and the student’s primary adviser.
Six or more semester hours in the minor must be taken at NIU.
B. Seminar in Current Problems: Meteorology/Climatology (3) (May be counted toward the minor when topic is appropriate.)
Students must take 3 semester hours in this course.