Description
RECOMMENDATION: Discretionary grant of $33,000 to the University of Wisconsin Foundation for a Hmong Studies study abroad program in northern Thailand
Since 2005, HLF grants have aided the establishment of Hmong studies as a subfield of Southeast Asian studies in the United States. Our most major investment was a $500,000 award to the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UWM) and the University of Minnesota (UM) in 2009. The states of Wisconsin and Minnesota are home to some of the largest concentrations of Hmong immigrants in the U.S., and there was demand within this community and on both university campuses for teaching and research devoted to Hmong history, culture and society. The grant supported a range of joint programming initiatives, including a biennial conference and the formation of a Hmong Studies Consortium. It also provided seed funding to UWM for a new faculty position, to which Ian Baird, in geography, was ultimately appointed, and monies for a postdoctoral fellowship at UM. Mai Na Lee, now an associate professor in history at UM, was one fellowship recipient.
Baird and Lee have been at the center of ongoing Consortium activities, serving as leaders in this emerging field. They have now joined forces to initiate a Hmong studies-specific study abroad program in northern Thailand, the focus of this proposal. The program would take place at Chiang Mai University, a new Consortium partner. The requested funding would aid the program’s inaugural year, with both Baird and Lee in residence. In future, they plan to lead the program in alternate years.
A $33,000 grant from HLF would cover Lee’s salary and travel, and partial scholarships for ten of the fifteen anticipated students. The program is expected to draw primarily, although not exclusively, Hmong Americans, many of whom come from low income households. You may see that the LOI included the option of a $153,000 grant to cover multiple years of the summer program and small awards for graduate students to conduct research. That would have been ideal, but other Asia Program commitments left insufficient funds. It is likely they will want to come back to us for additional funding. One possibility Ling and I have discussed would be to encourage UWM to fold Hmong studies efforts into a larger proposal submitted through our proposed new initiative on Southeast Asian studies, but raising that now would be premature.
HLF has, in a sense, been a midwife to Hmong studies. Support of the proposed study abroad program is an appropriate way to nurture the field’s continued growth. A summer program in Southeast Asia would build stronger connections for the Consortium in the region and afford students the opportunity to deepen their knowledge, as stated in the proposal, about “Hmong culture, history, religion, agricultural practices, land use, livelihoods and natural resource management,” particularly with respect to the Hmong Thai and Hmong Lao people who immigrated to Thailand in 1975 in the wake of the American secret war in Laos.
As you know from our discussion last week, Baird, the keeper of the login for the LOI, is in Thailand. The people at UWM who are poised to upload the proposal and supporting documents have not yet been able to obtain it from him. We’re hopeful to have everything sorted out by the end of the day, but in the interest of time I have attached the proposal and supporting documents in the Notes and Attachments section of Foundation Connect.
