Pacific Rim Study Center Opened

UCLA has established a Center for Pacific Rim Studies to promote research, courses and exchange programs on the countries bordering the Pacific Ocean.

Lucie Cheng, director of UCLA’s Asian-American Studies Center and a professor of sociology, is director.

“Around the Pacific are found America’s largest trading partners, and from this region come millions of our best-trained and most enterprising new immigrants,” she said. The Pacific Rim is important not only economically, but also because it presents such significant world issues as overpopulation, urbanization and unequal industrial development, she said.

The center will sponsor a two-year research program for scholars from around the world, she said.