ASP News

January 1st 2009, Asian Studies Programme got a new Programme Director – Michael Jacobsen. In order to get to know our PD a little better, Renmin Shinbun’s Emil Elgaard interviewed Mr. Jacobsen.

Michael Jacobsen may be know to some of the year 2 and 3 students. He has been working for Asian Research Center for several years and has acted as project-advisor for ASP-students and teaches Asian Economics and Business Practices in year 3.

Mr. Jacobsen, what does a programme director actually do?

The programme director is the one who coordinates the whole study, all 3+1 years. In term of academic content and languages – that is the main purpose of my job.

What is your background?

I’m an anthropologist by training; I got my anthropology degree in 1984, my PHD in 1992. I’ve been working as a basic researcher for 15 years. I have lived in many parts of Asia. I lived in Hong Kong for 7 years, in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and the Netherlands at the Asian institute there. So I have a deep background in Asian studies. I have published around 25 papers in international journals. So I think I know something about Asia.

So when the offer came whether I’d like to become the new ASP programme director, I said “Yes, why not?”. So let’s see what comes out of that.

Since you now are the new Programme director, what is likely to change?

ASP has some problems in the overall academic aspect of it and in language aspect of it. There are some problems in making the language more efficient and streamlining the administration. So there are many different fronts to work on. You can’t do everything at once; so you simply have to start somewhere. The main priority is to make the administration more efficient and to starting looking into how to make the programmes, especially the language programmes, more efficient as well. I went to a teachers meeting in December with teachers from both Chinese and Japanese. I found out that there are around 15 teachers. Everybody was talking and it was interesting talk. But I thought it could be much more efficient by suggesting two persons, one person from of the Japanese aspect and one person from the Chinese aspect to coordinate all 3+1 years. Then having teachers coming in as they see fit, meaning that those persons are responsible to the programme director and the study board. So that we don’t have a lot of people making different kinds of manuals and exam forms and all sorts of that. We have to straighten that out. It will also free more time for the administrator, the study board secretary in particular, to further develop the administrative side of ASP that has that been in some kind of turmoil for quite some time.

So we as students are likely to feel some tangible changes very soon then?

Yes, we have set up a small taskforce to develop these two persons who are to take up both the Chinese and Japanese language courses. And then we have submitted an application to the Dean of Education to hear whether he thinks it’s a good idea or not. I was actually encouraged to do that by Svend Bislev, the Vice Dean, so it should actually do some good. There is a possibly that it develop well and in case it does we will be able to feel a change very fast. If it was up to me, these persons would be employed from the 1^st of May, this year. And they will make the compendium for the next semester, so we start out next semester in case we get the green light. We are waiting for it, so it’s out of my hands right now.

If we look into the future, what is your vision of ASP, what kind of study would you like it to be?

It is a study where the students are prepared to take on further studies. Because I’m an academic by heart, and I want to give the students best starting point for taking up further academic career. Also because that the industries that might be interested in Asian specialists, particularly those with language competences, would like to have more than just bachelors. They want graduate students. So to accommodate that, ASP has to be streamlined in such a way that it starts feeding into a master programme that we are to develop here at the Asia research centre. This is some way out in the future, a couple of years from now. But it is definitely something we will start working towards, making it more attractive to study at the ASP. So it is not only a bachelor in Asian studies where you have some competences in Chinese or Japanese, but it also gives you some incentive to start moving on towards higher more academic studies. But the main focus will still be on Asia.

This is very far from where we are now. We produce very few graduate students since it is so easy to get a job with a bachelor’s degree from ASP.

If students can get a job with a bachelor’s degree as things are now, that’s perfect. But it would be very nice to know that ASP students continue on the further studies like Master and PHD. But that has to be integrated into the development of the Asia Research Centre. So in a sense I feel that ASP has come home to an institution that is already focused and specialized in Asia. So there is a good opportunity to create some synergy between the content of ASP and what goes on here. I’m looking forward to be looking into that. But that’s also some way out in the future. As for now, we have to streamline the mechanics to make the language more streamlined and to make the administration more streamlined. It is not good enough as it is now!

Last year, there were roughly 100 students who applied to ASP Chinese as their first priority, do you have any plans on how to increase application to ASP so as to attract more skilled students?

I think I will wait a little with answering that question until we see whether we can get those two persons who are to restructure both the Chinese and the Japanese aspect of ASP. Because in case we have a more efficient relation between the different years , from year one to three and year zero, then I think we will be ready to have more students. Because we would like to have more students, no doubt about that and the same goes for the Japanese course. But I think we should wait a while with that question until we can make the languages programmes more efficient, they are simply not structures enough as it is.

Do you have any plans on how to reduce dropout from ASP, which is quite high.

This is something I have already asked about, I would like to know why we have this dropout and what the background is for it. There is a dropout rate from year zero to year one, I’d like to know how come they do not continue. Then there is the dropout rate between different years, I’d like to know how come. Because this is the only way we can improve ourselves, to find out why people are dropping out. What are we not good at? What frightens off people? There are many different reasons for that, but I guess it might be partly because there isn’t enough connection between the languages taught and what is otherwise taught at ASP. These things have to be related to each other.

If it was up to you, do we still have ASP Japanese in 5 years?

Definitely, I’d say that with the relation to the Asia research centre, because here we have five main regions that we focus on: Japan, India, China and Southeast Asia. So of course the two language tracks fits direct into two of them. So of course we will have Japanese in 5 years. It is the second largest economy in the world, why shouldn’t we produce qualified student to take up positions in the industry or wherever they would like to work. It’s a good avenue for us.

Are there any plans to create other ASP like lines in Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia or India?

India is definitely coming up. There will be an Indian line, hopefully, already this coming September. I have been discussing that with Professor Anthony D’Costa who will be the one who is able to come up with some suggestions and linkages about how to do that. We are current discussing how to link India to the Chinese and Japanese languages. There is no problem in introducing Indian studies, but what do we do when the Chinese and Japanese students have their classes in language. What should the Indian students do? Because you cannot have a language there since lingua franca in India is English. What we will do, it is still on the drawing board and we are discussing it is to have this new fixed exchange year in the ASP that we will introduce as soon as possible. When all our Chinese and Japanese students go to our partners in Japan and China respectively, the Indian students will be going to a university or similar kind of institution in India where they will be taught Indian political economy by local staff. And depending on where India, they might have a language component in either Bengali or Hindi. Wherever professor D’Costa can help us out in finding an institution to use. So there will be some kind of language component in the Indian track but we do not but do not know for sure how it will be spelled out, but we are working on that. But there will be an Indian track.

Southeast Asia, well I’m a southeast asianist myself, I’ve been doing a lot of work there and I think it’s a wonderful area. Because you have ten different countries and you have heaps of different languages and cultures – and some interesting political economy going on there. I’m not sure whether we have a specific track of that, I don’t think so since its too complex. But it can be imputed into some other blocks that can be build into the ASP programme. And we are thinking of setting up an international relations section in order to bridge the Chinese, the Japanese and the Indian programme – so they are not getting too confined. So international relations theory actually looks at linkages between regions and governments – and here we can have Southeast Asia into the overall studies. But again this is only on the drawing board. I think it will be quite attractive to the students.

What do you identity as the biggest obstacles or challenges for ASP in the future?

I don’t know, that’s a big question. The biggest challenges are that we can keep up the number of students. We can do that by making the education on the various tracks more attractive. And because as you know, basically it’s a programme that is to earn money. And we earn money by producing students that graduate. By increasing that number we will have more money at the programme to develop it further. So it’s a kind of non profit kind of business that we run here because we have to reinvest whatever we earn into higher quality. So this will probably be the main challenge. I don’t see any threats to ASP. We are an extremely important programme, because as you know Asia is the list of priorities at CBS. There is no threat in the future…. further funding cut or someone deciding that it isn’t an important region anymore. Just think of how many of the world’s biggest economic engines and accumulation canters you find in Asia. It is simply imperative we produce students with a high quality that capable of aiding our businesses or other agencies in their Asian endeavors. I see a quite positive future for ASP, but we have to work on it. As it is now it is not in the best shape.

What is your impression of the students at ASP, what kind of people are they?

I have been a censor and examinator for several groups of ASP students, second year, third year in terms of censor and examinator. I have been teaching part courses at first year, second year and third year. This year I have read around 100 assignments from year one and year two, so I have a quite good feeling about it. And I’m surprised about the level of it. It is not that bad if I may say so, it’s quite good. What I think is important is that some more methodology should be put into it, in order to force those young people clarity their thoughts a bit more in terms of academic structure. That would definitely help them express themselves more clearly. But the basic for producing some students is definitely there, since I’m quite happy with the bunch we have now.

So it is a bunch of talented young people?

Definitely yes.

And you think their biggest weakness is methodology, if you are to give any advice?

Yes, because I can see that if I look at their assignments and their projects. And also I find that I lack some kind of structured engagement during class. But this is the old discussion between teacher and class, how to make that work. But the wonderful thing about teaching ASP is that the classes are small. For example this semester here I teach emerging markets at the international business and management. I have 120 students; just imagine how difficult it is to engage them. In sessions of, say 3 hours each. It is generally me talking for 3 hours and it is so boring. I want to more participation. But have very action oriented way of teaching, forcing students to pop up with some ideas and questions. So I think it can be done, but it is nice that we have small classes. All the pedagogical tools you have been learning at various courses we as teachers have gone through can be used when classes are small. It makes it more intensive. But I’m quite sure that the staff we have now, some of the teachers are quite good actually. But again it is something that will be strengthened because we are reorganized the way that the ASP is organized in terms of courses. And perhaps the sessions on methodology are spread out too much so that the students so that the students do not get a real picture of what a rigid methodology is, and when to apply it and how to apply it.

The social life is assumed to have a very big influence on dropout, do you have any plans on how to improve or maintain the social life on ASP?

I haven’t gotten into that yet. I have been invited to meet the students at the ASP hour this coming 3^rd of February. But because I’m part of a big research project I’ve been forced to go visit a company for a couple of days to interview some human resource managers. So I can’t be there. But I plan to find another day to meet the students and get to know what they are doing and what kind of initiatives they have do they have, what kind of expectations they have. And then not forgetting that on the 6^th march, we have the ASP study day. That’s when the students can come up with all sort of recommendations, complaints – it might also be positive. That will probably be my first real meeting with the students. Otherwise we have these pinpoint meetings at the ASP hours and I’ll put myself available there. Because I’d like to know the students, it’s the only way I can get a feel for what is going on out there, otherwise it is just an academic exercise.

You will all have the opportunity to meet Mr. Jacobsen in person at ASP hour on tuesday 17th of February.