Wesleyan has a new college, the College of East Asian Studies (CEAS). This academic re-configuration combines the existing East Asian Studies Program, Asian Languages and Literatures Department, and Freeman Center for East Asian Studies into one College housed primarily in the beautiful, tranquil Freeman Center for East Asian Studies on the north end of campus. The new structure also pulls Korean into the College from Less Commonly Taught Languages. CEAS provides for an expanded major as well as an entirely new minor.

The College joins the growing ranks of interdisciplinary colleges at Wes: the College of Social Studies, the College of Letters, the College of the Environment, and the College of Film and the Moving Image. Like some of the other colleges, CEAS will support significant co-curricular programming and cohort-building among majors.

Professor Laurie Nussdorfer, the Chair of the Educational Policy Committee which brought the proposal to the faculty for approval this past Tuesday, wrote that CEAS “is  innovative as a new 3 year major requiring a more advanced level of language study than before, and it builds a student cohort both by new opportunities for social interaction among majors and by bringing in new student constituencies, like native speakers and others interested in East Asia who are committed to other majors, through a new minor. These are clear benefits of the new arrangement.”

Students, too, are quite interested in the new College. “This news was a bit of a gamechanger for me,” an anonymous member of the Class of 2015 chimed in. “A lot of people are excited about the announcement of the new college because it is being seen as a signal that the University intends to take this program that is already very strong and renowned, and investing in it further. It feels good that the program is getting this recognition.”