A Year of Anniversaries
The Department of East Asian Studies is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, having been established as the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures in the fall of 1981.
Going back even earlier, it is now fifty years since Dr. Brian Evans initiated the teaching of Chinese at the university level in Alberta, when he began teaching Chinese to a graduate student in History in 1961-62. Out of that small beginning, which was a first not only for Alberta but for all the prairie provinces, the Department of East Asian Studies eventually grew.
Beyond the university, the Edmonton Chinese Bilingual Education Association (ECBEA) has also just celebrated its thirtieth anniversary. The ECBEA (www.ecbea.org/) is an association of parent volunteers supporting the Chinese Bilingual program in the public school system in Edmonton, which began with a kindergarten class in 1982 and inlvudes nearly 2000 students in twelve schools in the city.