By Ken Gewertz

Gazette Staff

Harvard's new Asia Center will be officially inaugurated this week, an event that will be marked by panel discussions, lectures by distinguished visitors, performances of original music, and premieres of feature films.

The Center is Harvard's response to the increasing importance of Asia internationally and to the growth of transnational institutions that are helping to unite the region. According to the Center's director, Ezra Vogel, the Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences, the Asia Center will focus on Asian political, economic, and social issues in much the same way as the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies addresses similar issues in Europe.

"There's a growing continent-wide consciousness in Asia, and Harvard needs an umbrella organization that can keep up with that," Vogel said.

President Neil L. Rudenstine said that the Asia Center will give Harvard the opportunity to take a leadership role not only in studying developments in the region but in helping to shape them as well.

"Harvard is home to a remarkable constellation of programs and activities related to Asia, as well as an expanding community of faculty and students deeply interested in Asian affairs," Rudenstine said. "The Asia Center represents a way to help link these programs and people to one another -- not to create something monolithic, but to strengthen opportunities for joint planning and projects in an area that's clearly of vital importance in the international arena."

Vogel agreed that the Asia Center fulfills a long-felt need.

"Asia comprises approximately half the world's population, and despite the fact that it's suffered an economic hiccup recently, it's still the fastest growing region in the world. I don't think the United States gives Asia enough attention. We're barely keeping up with the dynamism out there."

According to Vogel, the Asia Center will complement rather than replace existing centers and institutes devoted to the study of Asia. These include the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research (which has come to focus primarily on Chinese studies), and the Korea Institute.

The Center will bring together faculty and students from all of Harvard's schools and programs and become a focal point for interaction among scholars, government officials, and business leaders from Asia and members of the Harvard community.

In addition, the Center will place special emphasis on Southeast and South Asia, encouraging the expansion of teaching, research, and other activities in these areas.

Developing out of the East Asia Council, which began in the early 1970s, the Asia Center was officially established on July 1, 1997. A funding goal of $100 million has been set for the Center, most of which will be used to endow Asia-related professorships at various schools around the University. A core endowment of $15 million has been pledged for the Asia Center proper, to provide for visiting professorships, postdoctoral fellowships, outreach activities, conferences, workshops, and scholarly exchanges with Asian institutions.

"The Asia Center does everything we did before," said Professor of History William Kirby, who served as chair of the East Asia Council. "But in addition, it will promote more comparative work and build up Asian studies in the University as a whole. Our whole East Asian program began in much simpler times. In the process of gaining greater specialization, it's lost some of its comparative strength. The Asia Center is designed to restore the comparative perspective."

Susan Pharr, the Edwin O. Reischauer Professor of Japanese Politics, said that even Asia specialists have been surprised by the amount of scholarly work around the University that focuses on Asia.

"As we began to plan the creation of the Asia Center, it was quite a revelation to us how many activities have been going on around Harvard that no one has put together. Not only does the Asia Center create a meaningful framework for that research, but it will also generate a lot of new projects that will reach across faculties and schools. In the same way that Asia is working to create an international community, we are working to create a scholarly community within Harvard," she said.

The following are some of the major programs that are sponsored by the Asia Center:

* Asia Pacific Forum. The annual four-day meeting, the first of which took place in the summer of 1997, brings together high-level officials from China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States to discuss major issues that will affect the region into the 21st century.

* The Modern Asia Series. This program brings senior scholars, government officials, journalists, and others to speak weekly to the Harvard community about key issues from a regional perspective.

* The New Institutionalism in Asia. This multi-year study focuses on new organizations in Asia as well as the growth of new Asian intellectual communities and their impact on national governments. The project is funded by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Peace.

* Food Security in Asia. A yearlong workshop bringing together specialists in agriculture, nutrition, politics, and economics to focus on questions of food supply and food needs in Asian countries.

* Asian Religion, Economics, and Politics in Contemporary Asia. A comparative seminar to examine changes in religious organization in East, South, and Southeast Asia and their relation to economic and political changes.

* Distinguished Visitors Program. Throughout the year, senior Asia experts are invited to the University to engage in informal exchange with Harvard faculty and students.

Other activities include promoting student exchange between Harvard and Asian universities, providing graduate students and advanced fellows with research opportunities in Asia, expanding the East Asian publications program, and administering the Department of Education Title VI-funded National Resource Center which provides support for Asia-related teaching, research, administration, outreach, and library and museum activities throughout the University.