In 2021, Andrea Gevurtz Arai, Acting Assistant Professor, Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, and Jeff Hou, Professor, College of Built Environments, were awarded a Research Award through the Global Innovation Fund by the Office of Global Affairs. The Global Innovation Fund supports transformative cross-college, cross-continent global research, teaching, and learning experiences at the University of Washington.
Cover image for Spaces of Creative Resistance: Social Change Projects in Twenty-First Century East Asia
With additional funding support from the East Asia Center, UW Japan Studies Program, Department of Landscape Architecture, UW College of Built Environments, UW China Studies Program, UW Center for Korea Studies, UW Taiwan Studies Program, and UW Center for Global Studies, Andrea Gevurtz Arai and Jeff Hou hosted a virtual conference in 2022 to bring together a cross-regional, interdisciplinary group of scholars, scholar activists, and artists from across East Asia focused on different forms of “creative resistance” to the last two decades of social disconnection, wealth inequality and new burdens placed on reproductive labor and the environment. This project was the first of its kind at the UW, a collaboration between a cultural anthropologist of Japan (and East Asia) and a Taiwanese landscape architect, and gathered an interdisciplinary group of scholars, scholar activists, and individuals involved in different forms of social change.
Following the conference, Andrea Gevurtz Arai edited the papers and compiled them into chapters, including two additional papers from two of her graduate students, to create a volume that will be published this month by Rutgers University Press, Spaces of Creative Resistance: Social Change Projects in Twenty-First Century East Asia. Andrea Gevurtz Arai wrote the introduction and also contributed a chapter. Each chapter demonstrates how individuals and communities across East Asia are making their stands in the everyday, making more livable presents and more possible futures. A teaching appendix is available at the end to support educators across the U.S. and East Asia in bringing this volume into their classrooms.
The Conference
The conference was originally supposed to take place in person in 2021, but given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it ultimately took place virtually in 2022. Jeff Hou and Andrea Gevurtz Arai invited a range of voices from across East Asia – from scholars, scholar activists, and artists – to present papers on the true politics of the everyday. Some of the participants were young people writing about other young people, while others were scholars writing about what young people are doing to challenge the status quo.
It’s an interesting collection of stories of change that we don’t usually hear from the bottom up, from the grassroots, about what’s happening in East Asia.
Andrea Gevurtz AraiActing Assistant Professor
Andrea Gevurtz Arai also invited her students to participate in the conference, which resulted in two of them writing papers that would be included in the volume and one of them collaborating with Andrea Gevurtz Arai on the teaching appendix. Students in her classes who have read the papers are particularly interested in learning from their peers in East Asia about how to build a society in which you want to live in.
The Volume
The volume is divided into three sections – Creative Acts of Resistance, Cultural Spaces and Community Places, and Environments of Creative Resistance – and draws from the experiences of scholars, scholar activists, and artists in China, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea. From young people in Korea who are creating and living in village communities to foster a sense of belonging, to an organization in Japan committed to preserving a historic local cinema, to a social enterprise dedicated to revitalizing community and gathering spaces in Taiwan, the volume captures the breadth and depth of how youth are engaging in social action and creative space-making in East Asia.
This volume is about people’s lives right now, the history of those lives, the politics of those lives, and how social change movements materialize in the everyday.
Andrea Gevurtz AraiActing Assistant Professor
This volume presents a new and updated picture of East Asian societies. In the midst of a world in turmoil, facing a range of environmental, economic and social problems, young people are coming together to create something new, something of their own, sharing across national-cultural borders, learning from each other, revaluing their labor and their built and natural environments, in and from the center and peripheries.
To learn more about the impact of this volume, join Andrea Gevurtz Arai this summer at an event at Elliott Bay Books in Seattle or attend her talk at the East Asia Center at the UW in October.
The Office of Global Affairs is excited to celebrate Yen-Chu Weng for our November 2024 edition of the Global Visionaries series. The Global Visionaries series highlights the UW’s global impact by featuring innovative, globally-engaged faculty, staff, students and alumni.
Yen-Chu Weng
Dr. Yen-Chu Weng, Lecturer, Program on the Environment, describes her experience advancing global learning opportunities between the United States and East Asia – and reducing barriers to participation – for students at the University of Washington.
Dr. Yen-Chu Weng obtained a PhD in Geography & Landscape Architecture from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Previously, she earned a MS in Geography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a BS in Geography & Botany from National Taiwan University. Her knowledge and expertise includes environmental studies, sustainability, geography, data analysis, research methods, and international and regional studies.
I was born and raised in Taiwan. From an early age, I knew I wanted to explore more of the world. I chose geography as my field of study when I went to National Taiwan University. I really enjoyed all of the field components of the curriculum, especially going out to explore different topics across various regions in Taiwan. While I was in university, I took advantage of an opportunity to go on a new global exchange program to Germany. The language program allowed me to study German intensively for three months in Munich. In my senior year, I decided to study abroad again but this time in Australia on an exchange program to the University of Melbourne. My first few weeks in Australia were very difficult as I figured out how to navigate a different system of higher education and I gained more confidence to speak out during class discussions.
After I graduated from university, I spent one month in Taiwan after returning from Australia before I packed up all of my things and moved to Madison, Wisconsin. I came to the United States in 2003 to continue studying geography in graduate school. While I was in graduate school, I served as a teaching assistant for multiple courses in my department. It was a very formative experience for me. I learned more about what higher education looks like in the United States. I found a way to deliver instructions to students in my class while sharing my own perspectives. It involved a lot of self preparation and learning from my peers and mentors to learn how to adopt a more interactive teaching style.
My first job after graduate school was in the Program on the Environment in the College of the Environment at the University of Washington back in 2013. For the first couple of years, I mainly focused on developing curriculum and learning the curriculum in my program. In 2017 or 2018, after establishing some of my teaching credentials in my program, I decided to incorporate more of an global learning component into our curriculum. I saw there was a demand from students in the Program on the Environment to learn more about environmental issues in countries outside of the Western context. I decided to challenge myself and started seeking opportunities to bring in an international perspective to our curriculum. I got started by making connections with colleagues in Taiwan to lay the groundwork for a new study abroad program.
After launching my study abroad program to Taiwan, I began to explore other ways I could incorporate global learning into my day-to-day instruction in Seattle. I had a vision to create more inclusive global learning opportunities for students. I noticed there wasn’t a course at the UW that focused on environmental issues in East Asia, so I decided to create one to fill this gap – “ENVIR 430/JSIS 484: Environmental Issues of East Asia”. I am very thankful for my program director and for the Taiwan Studies Program at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies for their support in launching and promoting the course. I was eager to offer UW students a different perspective. The course focuses on Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan. Every time I offer the course, it draws undergraduate students from both international studies and environmental studies, as well as a few graduate students looking to advance their degree in environmental policy in East Asia.
In 2021, I decided to apply for a Teaching & Curriculum Award through the Office of Global Affairs’ Global Innovation Fund to bring even more of a global dimension to the course. I used the award funds to invite speakers from Taiwan and other scholars from East Asia to give virtual guest lectures. The lectures coincidentally mostly focused on climate change issues – from climate actions to public opinion about climate change to what data tells us about changes in climate patterns.
In 2022, I applied for another Teaching & Curriculum Award to deepen and broaden the content of the course. I used the award funds to invite several speakers across East Asia to focus on different perspectives when it comes to renewable energy issues. All of the lectures were hosted as an online YouTube webinar so students, not just in my classes, but other students, can sign up to watch the virtual lectures. Thanks to the great support of the Taiwan Studies Program, all of those videos have been archived and are available to anyone who wants to watch them.
In 2022, I realized I wanted to learn more about how to reduce barriers to global learning for students. With that in mind, I applied to be a part of the first cohort of UW Collaborative Online International Learning Fellows (COIL) to include faculty from the Seattle campus. COIL, a virtual exchange pedagogy that creates multicultural learning environments by linking university classes in different countries, expanded to the Seattle campus in 2022 after several years of collaboration and success at the Bothell and Tacoma campuses.
The 2023-2024 COIL Fellows cohort, with the support of the Office of Global Affairs at the Seattle campus, the Office of Global Affairs at the Tacoma campus, and Global Initiatives at the Bothell campus, was an amazing community of UW faculty interested in COIL pedagogy. We participated in workshops and trainings together during the Winter 2023 and Spring 2023 quarters and learned directly from previous COIL Fellows at the UW. Those two quarters that were focused on course development really helped me design my own COIL project.
I decided to branch out of my comfort zone and take an interdisciplinary approach by connecting with someone who is in the field of special education. I reached out to a professor at National Kaohsiung Normal University in Taiwan, Professor Chen-Chen Cheng, who was actually a colleague of mine from when I was a graduate student in Wisconsin. Our first challenge was to figure out how to develop and design a topic that would resonate with students from both of our courses and both of our universities. After a lot of brainstorming, we decided to focus our COIL project on evaluating the accessibility of interpretive signs in nature parks. The project included an environmental education piece, which my students could relate to, and an accessibility piece, which her student could relate to. We developed a protocol to analyze signs for their physical accessibility, communication accessibility, and multi-modality experience.
It took us about six months to plan the project, especially given the 15 hour time difference (my class met in the late afternoon and Professor Chen-Chen Cheng’s class met in the early morning) and because of scheduling, given the UW is on a quarter system and National Kaohsiung Normal University is on a semester system. We also created a Google Site so all of the students could have access to the same information.
What resulted was a five-week collaboration between my Environmental Issues of East Asia course and Professor Chen-Chen Cheng’s course in Special Education. Students attended joint lectures for two hours each week – and collaborated offline outside of lectures – on the basic design principles for accessible interpretive signs and inclusive communication for people with disabilities. They also conducted field work to observe and analyze interpretive signs in their respective cities – The UW Arboretum and the UW Farm in Seattle and several parks in Kaohsiung and Tainan, two major cities in Southern Taiwan. The students were intentionally split into seven groups, with a mix of American and Taiwanese students in each group. On the last day of the COIL project, the groups co-facilitated short presentations on Zoom.
Throughout the COIL project, my students and I were really grateful for the Taiwanese students for navigating the project entirely in English. My students at the UW were aware of this privilege and tried to use Google Translate and to communicate using gestures and body language to navigate the language barriers. Overall, the students really enjoyed taking their learning outside the classroom and expanding their perspectives by learning about another culture and discovering new ways to look at issues around the world.
The COIL project allowed me to further understand how many similarities there are between the daily lives of people throughout the world, although of course differences still exist. When discussing accessibility, many of the same issues arose in both the United States and Taiwan.”
UW StudentEnvironmental Issues of East Asia
I was inspired to propose the idea for this course after noticing an increase in awareness about teaching about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) in social studies across the K to 12 curriculum. I wasn’t aware of much curriculum being developed around these goals at the higher education level and I was curious to see if there were other faculty members or researchers or staff at the UW who saw their work aligned with the goals. So in 2022, I applied to be a Global Engagement Fellow through the Global Innovation Fund to create a community for faculty and staff at the UW to explore pedagogical tools to engage with the UN SDGs through their courses to promote global literacy and cross-cultural competence.
What I like about the UN SDGs is that there are 17 goals that foster peace and prosperity for people and the planet. While my own field relates more to the environmental elements of those goals, the goals encompass a wide range of critical issues, including poverty, social issues, gender equality, population health, education, infrastructure, global partnerships and policies and more. It’s a unique framework to think about how to address issues that every country in the world is facing and to discover solutions for how to improve the world.
During the Spring 2023 and Spring 2024 quarters, I was fortunate enough through a partnership with the Office of Global Affairs and the Population Health Initiative to offer a one credit General Studies course to introduce students to the UN SDGs called “United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: Global Goals, Local Actions“. The seminar invited experts and scholars from across the UW and the Seattle region to address each of the 17 goals. I reached out to UW faculty across campus to focus on different aspects of the UN SDGs to provide students with an interdisciplinary perspective.
My goal was to cultivate a strong commitment to global citizenship among UW students.
Dr. Yen-Chu WengProgram on the Environment
After offering the course twice so far, I have been contacted by several faculty members at the UW who are also thinking about using the UN SDGs framework to develop a course in their own majors – such as in Food Systems, Nutrition, and Health and in Landscape Architecture. For future iterations, I plan to create more opportunities for the students in the course to build community and connect with the guest speakers.
Nicola Kalderash, MS ‘22, BS ‘21, BA ‘21, reflects back on the life-changing experience of studying abroad in Taiwan during his studies at the University of Washington.
Nicola Kalderash
Nicola Kalderash is a cybersecurity professional at Boeing. He earned a Master of Science in Information Management and a Bachelor of Science in Informatics with a concentration in Cybersecurity and Information Assurance and a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies with a concentration in China and Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, National Security & Peace from the University of Washington. Prior to the University of Washington, he earned his Associate of Arts in General Studies at Seattle Central College.
In 2016, during his studies at Seattle Central College, he was awarded the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship to study abroad in Shanghai, China. In 2019, during his studies at the University of Washington, he was awarded the Robert N. Chang Foundation scholarship to study abroad in Taipei, Taiwan.
Studying in Taiwan
Nicola chose to study at the International Chinese Language Program at National Taiwan University to complete the language requirement for his Bachelor of Arts in International Studies. He opted to go to Taipei for the entire summer to take part in an intensive language program to advance his Mandarin language skills. After studying in China, Nicola was curious to learn more about the culture and history of Taiwan.
Studying at National Taiwan University was an intense, competitive learning environment. After taking a difficult placement exam that assessed his oral and written Mandarin skills, he signed a language pledge that he wasn’t going to speak English while in class. Throughout the program, Nicola studied Mandarin one-on-one with his teacher in the mornings and then practiced Mandarin with a small language class of just four students in the afternoons. None of the other students in his cohort were from the University of Washington.
Taroko Gorge
Outside of the classroom, Nicola took advantage of an internship opportunity with a cloud startup company. He helped the company to create a comprehensive security manual, ranging from what to do in the event of an emergency to establishing standard practices for formatting code. Nicola also had the spontaneous opportunity to be featured in an interview about cross-cultural romance that was shared widely across China and Taiwan.
On the weekends, Nicola explored Taipei and took trips to discover new areas across Taiwan, from beaches to temples to waterfalls. He enjoyed taking the train, exploring the sights and sounds and learning about the culture and history of Taiwan.
By the end of the program, I always tell people that it was evident how much I had learned. I not only gave my final presentation entirely in Mandarin, but on the way to the airport I had a full conversation with the taxi driver in Mandarin. It was clear to me just how much I had grown and learned since I stepped foot off the plane in Taipei a few months before.
Nicola KalderashUW alumnus
A hike overlooking Taipei
When Nicola realized he wanted to study abroad in Taiwan, he knew it was going to be expensive. So he researched all of the scholarships that he could find. After seeking guidance from the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, Nicola applied for a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship Program and for a Robert N. Chang Foundation scholarship. With the support of those two funding sources, as well as financial aid, it ended up being feasible for him to study abroad in Taiwan for the summer.
Studying in Taiwan helped Nicola step outside of his comfort zone. It made him more aware of the privileges of American citizens. He also walked away with a greater appreciation of different cultures.
I strongly believe that it’s worth the time and effort to apply for scholarship opportunities because it can open up doors to see the world and learn about other cultures. Traveling the world and seeing other countries gives you a better sense of who you are.
Nicola KalderashUW alumnus
Giving Back
Now that Nicola is a working professional, he is finding opportunities to give back. During his graduate studies at the UW, he was the chapter president of the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), an international nonprofit organization that advocates for professionals in the information security, assurance, risk management and governance industries. After receiving a scholarship from ISACA for foundational cybersecurity skills as a graduate student, Nicola is now taking the lead to create a new scholarship opportunity from ISACA. The scholarship is available to juniors, seniors and graduate students who attend a university in the Puget Sound area. The winner and runner-up of the innovative scholarship will receive cash awards to pay for a certification of their choosing as well as their student membership fee.
I was really blessed and thankful for all of the scholarships I received during my undergraduate and graduate studies. It’s really important for me to give back. It’s all about a virtuous circle.
Nicola KalderashUW alumnus
The Robert N. Chang Foundation
The Robert N. Chang Foundation was named after Robert N. Chang, a University of Washington alumnus who bequeathed his wealth in the form of his family foundation. The foundation is currently managed by his nephew, Allan Liu, and wife Mei-Lee Liu. Historically, Robert N. Chang Foundation scholarships have been granted to incoming or outgoing students from Hong Kong, China and Taiwan.
This spring, Professor Yen-Chu Weng, UW College of the Environment, brought together students from the University of Washington and National Kaohsiung Normal University in Taiwan to evaluate the accessibility of interpretive signs in nature parks.
Professor Weng’s course, “Environmental Issues in East Asia”, was a five-week collaboration with Professor Chen-Chen Cheng’s course in Special Education from National Kaohsiung Normal University. The partnership was the result of a 2023-2024 UW Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Fellowship. COIL Fellowship projects link university classes in different countries, provide students with critical digital literacy and virtual collaboration skills through shared assignments and projects and allow faculty members from each country to co-teach and manage coursework.
Students attended joint lectures on the basic design principles for accessible interpretive signs and inclusive communication for people with disabilities. They also conducted field work to observe and analyze interpretive signs in their respective cities – The UW Arboretum and the UW Farm in Seattle and several parks in Kaohsiung and Tainan, two major cities in Southern Taiwan. In a survey following the project, students ranked the following as having the strongest impact on their growth: Learning and understanding other ways of seeing the world, growth in self-awareness, greater understanding of different cultures, and understanding how to interact with people from different cultures.
Distinguished professionals, scholars, industry leaders, and policymakers from the U.S. and Japan
The University of Washington is at the forefront of an international effort to innovate the semiconductor industry while building a skilled U.S.-based workforce to design and manufacture chip technology. Part of a landmark education partnership that was announced in May 2023 at the G7 meeting in Japan, the effort brings together researchers and faculty from the U.S. and Japan to support the University Partnership for Workforce Advancement and Research & Development in Semiconductors (UPWARDS) for the Future project.
This historic partnership is supported by Micron Technology and Tokyo Electron Limited, and the National Science Foundation (NSF) and involves 11 universities from the U.S. and Japan dedicated to shaping the future of semiconductor research and workforce development.
“With our University’s proven track record of using public research investment to spur economic and technological growth, the UW is excited to be taking the lead in expanding our capacity to educate professionals and drive discovery in the critical field of semiconductors,” said UW President Ana Mari Cauce.
Japanese and US dignitaries with UW Provost Tricia Serio at a signing ceremony in Washington, DC.
The University of Washington and the University of Tsukuba have entered an innovation partnership with NVIDIA and Amazon aimed at furthering research, entrepreneurship, workforce development and social implementation in the field of artificial intelligence. This U.S.-Japan academic partnership is part of a broad, $110 million effort to build upon the strong ties between the U.S. and Japan and to continue to lead innovation and technological breakthroughs in artificial intelligence.
“This is an extraordinary opportunity for the UW to lead the global conversation on AI and to convene academic researchers, industry experts and governmental leaders to not only advance the workforce, but to change lives and communities by leveraging this powerful technology,” -UW Provost Tricia Serio
The University of Washington and the Aga Khan University have partnered substantially over the past years to advance global population health and link their institutions. Through these collaborations, students, faculty, and researchers have benefited from the shared expertise and exchange in a range of areas and disciplines.
Read more about the history and impact of this partnership and the Office of Global Affairs and Global Innovation Fund’s involvement below:
“There were a lot of synergies between our two institutions not just in terms of our social justice missions, but around the values of what this partnership holds,” Farzana Karim-Haji, director of the Aga Khan University Partnerships Office, said. “The Population Health Initiative at UW draws parallels to AKDN’s Quality of Life Initiative, where both are focused on a holistic view of improving the overall human condition from a variety of aspects in health, education, poverty alleviation, climate change, etc.”
The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs is honoring the University of Washington Department of Asian Language and Literature for its outstanding contributions to the promotion of friendship between Japan and the U.S. The UW is deeply and intrinsically connected to the Pacific Rim and the world. Our Department of Asian Languages and Literature embodies this spirit of global connection and collaboration.
Starting in 1910 with a course on classical Japanese literature, the UW Department of Asian Language and Literature has been instrumental in the development and expansion of Japanese studies in the Pacific Northwest and across the U.S. The department also has long-standing collaborations with world-class Japanese universities, creating opportunities for faculty, students and staff to engage across barriers of culture and language.
Now offering courses exploring ancient to modern Japanese language and literature, the department is also deeply connected to our local community. These connections promote friendship across the Pacific, and share beautiful traditions such as the celebration of the blossoming of the iconic UW cherry trees.
Smithsonian Magazine profiled the work of passionate UW researcher and conservation advocate Samuel Wasser. He is using wild animal dung to trace and end poaching around the world.
A new exhibition and video documentary tell the story of a refugee family. These were developed by ART WORKS Projects in collaboration with the UW Center for Global Studies, The Seattle Times, UW Libraries and the King County Library System.
In 
Students attended joint lectures on the basic design principles for accessible interpretive signs and inclusive communication for people with disabilities. They also conducted field work to observe and analyze interpretive signs in their respective cities – The UW Arboretum and the UW Farm in Seattle and several parks in Kaohsiung and Tainan, two major cities in Southern Taiwan. In a survey following the project, students ranked the following as having the strongest impact on their growth: Learning and understanding other ways of seeing the world, growth in self-awareness, greater understanding of different cultures, and understanding how to interact with people from different cultures.
