Mongolia Program at WWU growing with help of grant funds, teacher exchange program

This afternoon in Humanities Building Room 103, Western Washington University Professor Ed Vajda will teach what he thinks is the second-largest Mongolian-language class in the history of U.S. higher education.

The biggest class ever, he thinks, was the one he taught last quarter. These two classes – Elementary Mongolian I and II – are the first Mongolian language classes offered at WWU as regular credit classes, and they’re the biggest Mongolian language classes ever offered in the U.S., Vajda says. And someday, he hopes, they’ll become a regular part of the WWU curriculum. Because no such thing currently exists, Vajda is planning to write a textbook for the class.

The 20 Western students who, for 50 minutes a day, four days a week, learn basic conversation, reading and writing skills in the standard language of the Republic of Mongolia are part of a general explosion of interest in the study of inner Asia and Eastern Europe at WWU.

This fall, Vajda plans to teach two large classes, one on Nomadic peoples and another on Russian civilization. Both classes fulfill students’ general university requirements, and Vajda expects at least 100 students to sign up for each one. Vajda had hoped to have 300 students in each class but was unable to secure rooms large enough, he says. This spring, Western also was successful in attracting a Fulbright-sponsored Mongolian language teaching assistant, who will arrive in September and spend nine months as a part of the university community. She will teach the Mongolian language classes during the next academic year.

Using money from a two-year grant worth nearly $176,000, Vajda is restructuring the university’s Mongolian and Russian course offerings to allow students easier access to the two languages and to much-needed GUR courses.

It’s an interesting plan.

“We have, at no cost to the university, made a specialized program that distinguishes Western and contributes to the general mission of Western and to other programs,” Vajda says. “It’s not enough to be specialized, to say that we have this rare Mongolian Studies program. These classes have to do at least their part, if not more, of helping students graduate in four years. They have to have a significant impact on GUR.”

And they’ll do that, he says. Both classes – Nomads of Eurasia (EUS 210 and EAST 210) and Survey of Russian Civilization (EUS 201) – will be full, Vajda says.

“These classes have never been offered in such large numbers before, but they will fill up,” he says, adding that the Nomads of Eurasia class, offered sporadically in the past, typically has reached its 100-student capacity in just a couple of days. “Even though we’re doing something exotic, we’re doing it in a way that increases students’ ability to graduate in four years.”

Steven Vanderstaay, Western’s vice provost for undergraduate education, said Vajda’s plan is an inspiration.

“President (Bruce) Shepard has advocated a bottom-up budget process in which everyone can contribute ideas for saving money, heightening efficiencies and improving services,” he said. “This is a perfect example of that.”

Vajda thinks that by exposing students to the relevant Russian and Mongolian culture and history through the big GUR courses in the fall, he’ll increase students’ interest in progressing to the classes in the Russian and Mongolian languages, the sequences for which now will begin in winter quarter.

“Vajda is a great model for Western, because he’s a nationally recognized researcher and he is also a popular, well-respected teacher,” Vanderstaay said. “(In this program) we’re really seeing that those two can combine.”

The Mongolian 197A and 297B language courses planned for winter 2010, in addition to the Mongolian 197B course slated for the spring, will be taught by visiting teachers from WWU’s new partner universities in Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia, assisted by a Fulbright-sponsored teaching assistant, also from Mongolia. The Russian 120 and 203 courses in the spring will be taught by visiting teachers from WWU’s new partners in the Russian Federation.
WWU has entered into partnership agreements with three universities in Mongolia; a delegation from the Academy of Management in Ulaan Baatar visited the WWU campus in January to sign the exchange agreement.

The new program will present astounding educational opportunities for all countries involved, says Doug Nord, director of Western’s Center for International Studies.

“Mongolians as a people have been experiencing significant economic, social and environmental change over the past two decades, and our developing links with them allow us to better understand the challenges they have confronted and the opportunities for collaborative interaction that are before us today,” he said.

Also slated to be offered in spring 2011 will be East Asian Studies 314, “The Mongols,” which documents the history of the Eurasian steppes from the rise of Chinggiz Khan to the present day.

Vajda expects that that class, too, should draw interested students into the Mongol language courses.

Mongol history has played a huge role in determining world history, Vajda says.

The Mongols at one point were the world’s largest empire, Vajda says, and during its gradual disintegration the culture was partially absorbed by the agricultural societies on its periphery.

“There’s no possible way to understand the modern Middle East, Russia or East Asia without understanding the Mongols,” Vajda says.

For more information on the Mongolia Program at Western Washington University, contact Ed Vajda at edward.vajda@wwu.edu.

 

An intriguing language

The language of the Mongols is a fun and interesting one, says Ed Vajda, director of the Center for East Asian Studies at Western Washington University, and there’s a lot about the Mongol language that people don’t know.

For example: “A lot of fantasy writers borrow from Turk, Mongol, or Russian linguistic sources to name bad guys,” Vajda says.

Take the rotund villain Jabba the Hut or the beaked Sarlac Pit Monster from Star Wars, Vajda says. “Jabba” is close to the Russian “zhaba,” which means “toad.” “Sarlac” is Mongol for “yak.”

And then there’s J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. Tolkien, himself a famed linguist, borrowed much from Mongol for his villains, particularly the Black Speech and Orkish, Vajda says.

“The passage written on the inside of the ring has a distinct Mongolian-style structure to it,” he says.

The Mongolia collection

At more than 10,700 titles, and somewhere around 12,000 discrete volumes, Western Washington University's collection of books on Mongolia is by far the largest academic collection in the Western Hemisphere, says Henry Schwarz, who founded the Mongolia Program at WWU in 1975 and donated the first set of books to the collection.

“We are the main source in North America for books on Mongolia and the surrounding areas,” Schwarz says, adding that Western’s collection is bigger even than the one at the Library of Congress.

One thing that sets Western’s collection apart from others is the abundance of books on a variety of topics, says Schwarz, including traditional medicine, traditional music, botany, zoology and technology, among many others. The collection, which is broadly representative of all parts of Mongolia, is used by scholars world-wide, and the materials are available throughout the country via inter-library loans, he says.

“The collection continues to grow by leaps and bounds,” Schwarz says.

For his part, Schwarz has continued to donate books to the collection since its inception. As of the end of 2009, he has contributed 16,601 volumes to the Mongolia collection at WWU. Schwarz retired from the university in 1993 but still is active in supporting the collection and the program.

For information on accessing the collection, contact Henry Schwartz at henry.schwarz@wwu.edu.

Scattered throughout the Wilson Library, a collection of books and other publications in the field of East Asian studies is available for students interested in the history, political development and languages of China and Mongolia. The books are written
Jonathan Addleton, visiting Western to observe the developing Mongolian Language and Studies classes on campus, speaks to a captivated audience of students in Professor Ed Vajda’s Mongolian Studies class. Addleton describes his job and what challenges fac
The Ethnic Student Center at Western Washington University put on its biggest event of the year, Culture Shock, on Thursday, May 14, in the Performing Arts Center on Western's Bellingham campus. At the annual event, members of the ESC, other students at W
Western Washington University students marched from the Performing Arts Center to downtown Bellingham and back Tuesday, May 12, as part of Take Back the Night. The annual event aims to end street violence and harassment of marginalized gender identities.
Ed Vajda, director of the Center for East Asian Studies at WWU, teaches on Mongolian history during a class. Photo by Matthew Anderson | WWU
Ed Vajda, director of the Center for East Asian Studies at WWU, teaches on Mongolian history during a class. Photo by Matthew Anderson | WWU
Western student Roderic Powell (far right) attends Professor Ed Vajda’s Mongolian Studies class because of an interest in Mongolian culture and language in general. “I guess I have an interest in the Soviet sphere of influence as a whole,” Powell said. Ph
Scattered throughout the Wilson Library, a collection of books and other publications in the field of East Asian studies is available for students interested in the history, political development and languages of China and Mongolia. The books are written