American Center for Mongolian Studies

Infobox Company
company_name = American Center for Mongolian Studies
company_
company_type = Academic, Not-for-profit
foundation = 2002
location = Bellingham, Washington
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
key_people = William Fitzhugh, President of the Board of Directors
Charles Krusekopf, founder and Executive Director
Brian White, Resident Director of Mongolia Office

industry =
products =
revenue =
operating_income =
net_income =
num_employees =
parent =
subsid =
homepage = http://www.mongoliacenter.org/
footnotes =

The American Center for Mongolian Studies (ACMS) is a US registered 501(c)3 not-for-profit, academic organization which promotes research and scholarship in Inner Asia, a broad region consisting of Mongolia and parts of China, Russia and Central Asia, including Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Buryatia, Tuva and eastern Kazakhstan.

International academic activities in Inner Asia are often conducted within the confines of particular disciplines because opportunities for discussing and sharing cross-discipline research are rare. As a result, research produced within one discipline is not readily available to researchers of other disciplines, and this creates circumstances in which valuable knowledge about Mongolia and Inner Asia is underutilized.

The American Center for Mongolian Studies was established in order to facilitate and coordinate the various multi-discipline research activities occurring each year in the region. It is a consortium of approximately 30 academic and cultural institutions in North America and Inner Asia, including the National University of Mongolia, the Smithsonian Institution, Western Washington University, and Indiana University. Although similar in some respects to the Mongolia Society at Indiana University, the ACMS is the only US based Mongolian Studies and Inner Asia focused academic and research organization operating a permanent office in Mongolia.

History

The ACMS was incorporated in 2002 in Austin, Texas and established its home office at Austin College. It moved its home office to Western Washington University in 2003, and opened its Mongolia office in 2004, which is currently housed in the School of Foreign Affairs at the National University of Mongolia.

Mongolian Studies scholars and discipline based Mongolian researchers were instrumental in the establishment of the ACMS, and the United States Department of Education, United States Embassy in Mongolia, and Council for American Overseas Research Centers contributed significant financial resources to establish and operate the ACMS Mongolia office.

Governance

A board of directors comprising one representative from each member institution and “board members at large” elected by ACMS individual members oversees the activities of the ACMS and provides guidance in addressing research issues in Inner Asia. It is governed by officers nominated and elected to two year terms by the board itself. These officer positions include president, vice-president for external relations, vice-president for member services, treasurer, and secretary. The board of directors also appoints the executive staff which supervises the daily operations of the organization. This executive staff includes the executive director of the ACMS, resident director of the ACMS Mongolia office, and deputy director of the ACMS Mongolia office.

Officers

* President - William Fitzhugh, Smithsonian Institution
* Vice-President for External Relations - Vacant
* Vice-President for Member Services - Dr. Chris Atwood, Indiana University
* Treasurer - Christine Wright, MPA, CPA
* Secretary - Dr. Elizabeth Endicott, Middlebury College

Membership

The organization has over 30 institutional members which include universities, museums, and other not-for-profit, educational or cultural organizations. In addition, the ACMS has over 200 individual members and sponsors.

Logo

The logo is derived from the Mongolian soyombo, the symbol on the national flag of Mongolia.

Activities

Promoting research and scholarship in Inner Asia is the stated goal of the ACMS. It organizes and conducts international conferences, provides fellowships to student researchers, cooperates with local libraries to improve access to materials, and produces informational resources about academic activities in Inner Asia. It provides logistical support to individual researchers and institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution and United States Geological Survey. In addition, it organizes regular public lectures in Ulaanbaatar which are given by Mongolian and international scholars on various research topics.

Research

Mongolia was overlooked in much of the congressional spending legislation produced in the post-Soviet era, such as the Fulbright-Hays Title VIII program. As a consequence direct US government support for the field of Mongolian Studies dwindled relative to other area studies throughout the 1990’s, and institutional support for discipline-based research in Mongolia was not well organized. In spite of this, between 1990 and 2003 over 70 PhD dissertations and Masters theses were written at US universities about topics related to Mongolia or involving Mongolia as the context of the research. The ACMS was founded with the intention of providing the institutional support to address these resources issues and organize research produced in the region.

Library Access

Library resources of significant research value are difficult to access in Mongolia. Inconsistent business hours, inaccessible catalogs, and poor research environments occasionally produce insurmountable barriers for researchers. The ACMS provides logistical support to researchers in order to gain access to collections that individuals may not be able to access on their own. In addition, the ACMS maintains its own library of Mongolian Studies and discipline-based academic materials which is open to the public. It is also a participating member of the Local Libraries and Archives Project under the guidance of the American Institute for Yemeni Studies (AIYS) and the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC), with funding support from the US Department of Education Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access (TICFIA) program which aims to increase digital access to foreign library resources through the Digital Library for International Research.

External links

* [http://www.mongoliacenter.org/ American Center for Mongolian Studies - www.mongoliacenter.org]
* [http://library.mongoliacenter.org/ American Center for Mongolian Studies Library Website - library.mongoliacenter.org]
* [http://www.indiana.edu/~mongsoc/ Mongolia Society - www.indiana.edu/~mongsoc/]
* [http://www.indiana.edu/ Indiana University - www.indiana.edu/]
* [http://www.wwu.edu/ Western Washington University - www.wwu.edu/]
* [http://www.caorc.org/ Council for American Overseas Research Centers - www.caorc.org/]
* [http://www.aiys.org/ American Institute for Yemeni Studies - www.aiys.org/]
* [http://www.aiys.org/aodl/index.php Digital Library for International Research - www.aiys.org/aodl/index.php]
* [http://www.crl.edu/areastudies/ticfia/index.html TICFIA - www.crl.edu/areastudies/ticfia/index.html]
* [http://www.aodl.org/ticfia/conference/local.php Local Libraries and Archives Project - www.aodl.org/ticfia/conference/local.php]