About KCTA:

The Kansas Consortium for Teaching about Asia (KCTA) is headquartered at the Center for East Asian Studies, University of Kansas, and is associated with the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia (NCTA).  It is funded by the Freeman Foundation of New York and Stowe, Vermont.  NCTA maintains five regional oversight centers in the United States that work with more than forty educational institutions.  KCTA is part of the Columbia University group.

KCTA works with school districts in Kansas and western Missouri to prepare their students to be successful by enhancing instruction about East Asia throughout the curriculum, especially in world history, social studies, and geography classes.  KCTA endeavors to help teachers and school librarians develop an understanding and appreciation of China, Korea and Japan, to provide knowledge about this vital part of the world and to promote informed analyses of its interdependence with our area.  This is especially important in the twenty-first century when natural resources, business policies, political affairs, and cultural events around the world affect Americans in many ways.  

KCTA offers “Teaching East Asia,” a thirty-contact hour seminar for in-service teachers and school librarians twice a year, as well as follow-up activities for seminar alumni including workshops, lectures, trips to national sites and opportunity for international travel.  The goal of the seminar is to help create a permanent place for East Asia in the K-12 curriculum.

KCTA is located at:
1440 Jayhawk Blvd. room 200
University of Kansas
Lawrence, KS 66045

Phone: (785)864-3849
Email: rhacker@ku.edu

KCTA Staff:

William Tsutsui, Director

E-Mail: btsutsui@ku.edu

A specialist in modern Japanese business and economic history, Dr. Tsutsui holds degrees from Harvard, Oxford and Princeton Universities. His recent publications include Manufacturing Ideology: Scientific Management in Twentieth-Century Japan (1998) and the three-volume anthology Banking in Japan (1999). He teaches introductory courses at the University of Kansas on East Asian history, upper-level surveys of modern Japan, and topics classes on Japanese business and Japanese national identity.

Nancy Hope, Associate Director

E-Mail: nfhope@ku.edu

Nancy has MA degrees in education, fine arts and Asian art history. She lived in Japan for almost nine years, first as an officer in the United States Navy and then as a designer and dyer of kimono for a Japanese firm. Prior to this she was involved in school and community outreach at the Children's Museum in Boston. She also is the Associate Director of the Kansas/Asia Scholars Programs at the University of Kansas.

Randi Hacker, Outreach Coordinator

E-Mail: rhacker@ku.edu

Randi Hacker has been a professional writer for most of her adult life specializing in educational material for children. After spending many years in New York City as an editor at several publishing companies including Children's Television Workshop, she created and published her own magazine -- P3, an environmental magazine for children. She is the author of a book entitled How to Live Cheap, Green and Happy (Stackpole Press). In addition to her writing, Randi spent many years teaching in public schools in Northern Vermont and developed several successful community outreach programs in her capacity as librarian at Montgomery Elementary School. She holds a BA in English from the University of Michigan and an MA in English As a Second Language from St. Michael's College in Vermont.