Oberlin LIASE Collection

The Oberlin LIASE program was supported by the Luce Foundation with a Luce Initiative on Asian Studies and the Environment (LIASE) grant beginning in 2016 and continuing through 2022 and in coming years. The LIASE grant program built and expanded connections between Asian Studies and Environmental Studies at twenty-four liberal arts institutions of which Oberlin was one. Oberlin’s LIASE Implementation Grant spanned from 2016 to 2022 and supported trips to Asia, the planting of A-Bomb survivor trees from Hiroshima in Oberlin, faculty research, in-person events in Oberlin, Zoom webinars during the COVID-19 pandemic, and more.

Oberlin College received an initial one-year exploration grant for academic year 2014-15, and a later multi-year implementation grant for the academic years 2017-18 to 2021-22. A key partner of LIASE in Oberlin is the Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association. Focusing on China, Japan, and Indonesia, Oberlin connected with Beijing Normal University, Shanxi Agricultural University, Sichuan University, Doshisha University, Tohoku University, Waseda University, Green Legacy Hiroshima, ANT-Hiroshima (Asian Network of Trust Hiroshima), UNITAR (United Nations Institute for Training and Research), Gajah Mada University, Syiah Kuala University, and the International Centre for Aceh and Indian Ocean Studies. Oberlin hosted a wide array of events and speakers, covering topics such as sustainability, disaster, energy, natural resource management, and art, film and literature. The COVID-19 pandemic prevented trips to Asia in the last few years of Oberlin’s grant, sending the college into a no-cost extension with a greater focus on on-campus events and funding relevant faculty research.

The activities of LIASE at Oberlin were led through the efforts of faculty members Ann Sherif, Chie Sakakibara, Steven Wojtal, and Qiusha Ma as well as a continuous series of student assistants. While many of the faculty and students came from LIASE’s core departments of Environmental Studies and East Asian Studies, many others had backgrounds in other fields at Oberlin, from STEM, the humanities, and the Conservatory. The Oberlin LIASE program has a website with a great deal of information on its faculty, staff, student assistants and activities.

Much of LIASE’s programming in Oberlin was related to Green Legacy Hiroshima, founded in 2011 by Nassrine Azimi and Tomoko Watanabe “to disseminate the universal message of trees that survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.” Oberlin is one of Green Legacy’s 134 partners in 40 countries that have received seeds and saplings descended from the trees that survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima against all odds, demonstrating both the resilience of life and the danger of nuclear weapons. Oberlin received survivor seeds in 2015 and planted a gingko sapling grown from them in 2017 on Tappan Square in Oberlin. Green Legacy is also one of the three organizations that Oberlin Shansi partners with for its Hiroshima Fellowship, along with ANT-Hiroshima (Asian Network of Trust Hiroshima) and UNITAR (United Nations Institute for Training and Research).

Note written by Noah Kawaguchi.