12 November 2007

FASS launches Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Initiative on Southeast Asia

COLLABORATION: Assoc Prof Tan Tai Yong (left), Dean, FASS, with the inaugural Distinguished Fellow Prof Robert W Hefner (centre) and Assoc Prof Hendrik Meyer-Ohle, Asst Dean (Research), FASS.

Researchers and students of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) can now get a chance to work with top overseas scholars under the Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Initiative on Southeast Asia.

The initiative kicked off with a public lecture (7 Nov) by inaugural Distinguished Fellow Prof Robert W Hefner from Boston University. The lecture, Civil Democrats or Radical Islamists? Islamic Education and Democratization in Indonesia provided insights into the implications of madrasas education in the country.

The Distinguished Fellowship provides an expert to spend up to a year between NUS’ FASS and Walter H Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University to conduct research on Southeast Asia.

Assoc Prof Tan Tai Yong, Dean of FASS, said the initiative will allow academics in the Faculty’s research clusters to engage and collaborate with experts worldwide on multidisciplinary research on Southeast Asia along themes such as religion and migration.

“It fits in nicely with our vision of groups of scholars working together in NUS, interacting with distinguished scholars overseas, and then building up network and research agenda,” he said.

Prof Hefner, the Professor of Anthropology and Associate Director of the Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs, has conducted extensive research on Islamic education in Southeast Asia since late 1980s.

Prof Hefner will also be conducting a seminar with NUS graduate students in February next year. “I am a researcher in education but I am also deeply interested in the education process itself," he said.

The initiative is made possible with a US$2.5 million gift from the Lee Foundation, which is matched dollar-for-dollar by the Singapore Government, bringing the total endowed fund to US$5 million.

The late Tan Sri Dr Lee Kong Chian, founder of Lee Foundation, was an entrepreneur-philanthropist par excellence. His legacy of giving has had significant impact on NUS as well as East Asia's social and educational landscape. The Lee Foundation has given hundreds of millions of dollars to education, thus helping to shape the future.