I’m so proud of my students in ASIA 2610 Overseas Encounters (Spring 2023), who together built this site of online exhibition — Vanderbilt and Asia: Student and Alumni Connections.
The class happens to include 23 students many of whom are first-year international students. For the final project, we explored the Asian students who came to Vanderbilt University for an education from 1873 to 1923, the first 50 years of Vanderbilt’s history. We have discovered amazing adventures, tragic stories, and thought-provoking life choices in times of national conflict.
This has been a unique course and unique experience. I have witnessed significant and occasionally worrisome changes in the south of America during my eight years as a faculty member at Vanderbilt University. Stories of VU’s Asian alumni from 100 years ago shockingly resemble our experiences in modern-day America. I hope students have found my course helpful for them to understand history and navigate today’s troubled world.
