Liberal Arts Experiments in

Asia and the Citizenship

Question

YiEn Cheng, Dr.

Postdoctoral
Fellow
Division of Social
 What restructuring of higher
education tells us about
shifting relationship between
state and youth citizenship?

Young peoples perspectives

Social reproduction + Cultural

production
Liberal arts in Asia: an experimental
moment
Liberal arts in Asia: an experimental
moment

https://shanghai.nyu.edu/about/vision
Liberal arts in Asia: an experimental
moment

https://www.ln.edu.hk/about-lu/vision-
mission-and-core-values
Yale-NUS College of
Liberal Arts and
Sciences, Singapore

The starting point

of investigation
Liberal arts in Asia: Singapore, the
Halcyon Soars
Liberal arts in Asia: Singapore, the
Halcyon Soars
:: Another global citizenship story?

relationship between education and the cultivation of certain kinds of

citizen subjects: the democratic citizen (Mosher 1994); multicultural
citizen (Banks 1997); global citizen (Matthews and Sidhu 2005);
cosmopolitan citizen (Mitchell, 2003)
New ethical milieu? The socially responsible, cosmopolitan citizen;
especially within young generation

https://www.yale-nus.edu.sg/about/vision-and-mission/
 Liberal arts in Asia: Singapore, the
Halcyon Soars
:: Community-building and its exclusions

Student awareness of exclusionary

boundary:
the Yale-NUS Bubble

The Bubble is an invisible wall around us. It

imprisons us both physically and culturally,
yet most of the time we arent even aware of
it.

Yale-NUS is so awesome that it makes

everything else seem unawesome In
fact, after a while, most Yale-NUS students
behave as if our surrounding geography
Excerpt from http://theoctant.org/edition/v-4/lifestyle/breaking-yale-nus-bubble/
looks like this:
Liberal arts in Asia: Singapore, the
Halcyon Soars
:: Student consumerism or Freedom of
voice? I have always sought to inculcate an
Series of unfortunate events:
- Event Approval Committee
- Suspension of Yale-NUS International
Relations and political Association (YIRPA)
- Mental health-Student welfare
ethos of service at the Collegethis
means that while we provide
wonderful facilities and the best
efforts we can in terms of educational
programs, we also expect students to
be active participants in their own
learning and community-building and
not to adopt the attitude of the
dissatisfied customer.
I hope that the principle of charity
and an ethos of service will be
guiding features of Yale-NUS College
throughout its history.
(Pericles Lewis, President Yale-NUS
College)
Liberal arts in Asia: Singapore, the
Halcyon Soars
:: Vibrant forms of student citizenship
Students at Yale-NUS are also producing vibrant forms of
citizenships:
- counter-scenes (strong LGBTQ education; Octant etc.)
- vocal about social change
- active community participation and building, especially
through the Center for International and Professional
Experience (CIPE)
Concluding comments

Liberal arts experiments not narrowly about meeting global

economic trends, nor only about institutional aspirations

Also an experiment in citizenship-making for a newer kind

of economy and ethical milieu; this happening at the
interstices of the state, educational institution, and young
people themselves

Multiple articulations of citizenship subjectivities, pulled

into, pushing against, departing from normative scripts
citizenship in flux (Isin, 2009)

Vibrant forms of citizenship as curated youth agency?

Shifting product of infrastructure (state policies, educational