EASC: Teaching About Asia

Richard Bohr, Ph.D., is a history professor and the Director of Asian Studies at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University in Minnesota. He writes, speaks, and consults on U.S.-China relations and intercultural communications. He appears regularly on Minnesota Public Radio and has done China-related documentary and commentary for PBS Television, including The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly. Since 1980, he has organized and led study tours of China for students, faculty, and business people and is now developing an interdisciplinary course on doing business with China.

During 1991-1992, Bohr was the Director of Padilla Speer Beardsley International, responsible for developing programs and services in intercultural communication with Asia. In 1988-91, he served as the Deputy Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Trade and Economic Development and the Executive Director of the Minnesota Trade Office, the state's international business promotion agency. From 1980 to 1987, Bohr was the President and Executive Director of the non-profit Midwest China Center, a coalition of several dozen colleges/universities, foundations, and corporations as well as civic, religious, community, and arts organizations. He developed innovative services and programs which resulted in a significant expansion of many-sided relationships between the American Midwest and China. During 1979-1980, Bohr was the Assistant Professor of Asian History at Ohio Wesleyan University, where he taught courses on East-West interaction. He taught at Diocesan Boys School in Hong Kong during the early 1970's.

Bohr is the founding board chair of NEO Business College for Women in Tokyo and is the current Board Chair of ASIANetwork, a coalition of 165 U.S. liberal arts colleges which maintain Asian Studies programs. He is a founding board member of the Orville and Jane Freeman Center of International Economic Policy at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs of the University of Minnesota; International Trade Program at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota; and Hospitality Center for Chinese. He is a member of the Association for Asian Studies; National Committee on United States-China Relations; Minneapolis-St. Paul Committee on Foreign Relations; Minnesota Foreign Affairs Advisory Committee; Society of International Business Fellows; and Minnesota International Center. He also advises the state of Minnesota on its trade and investment strategies in China and has served on the steering committee of the "Making the Global Local" project, funded by the Ford Foundation.

In addition to numerous publications on China's monumental Taiping Rebellion (1851-64), Bohr is the author of Famine in China and the Missionary: Timothy Richard as Advocate of National Reform, 1876-1884 (Harvard University Press, 1972) and Religion in the People's Republic of China: The Limits of Reform (The China Council of The Asian Society, 1982). He is also an editor of Midwest USA/China Resource Guide (Midwest China Center and Minnesota World Trade Center, 1987). He has published many articles on U.S.-China relations in professional journals and the popular press. He sits on the editorial board of the International Policy Review and is editing a forthcoming issue entitled "Is China Growing Too Fast?"

Bohr holds a Ph.D. in Modern Chinese History from the University of California, Davis; an M.A. in East Asian Studies and M.Div. degrees from Harvard University; and a B.A. degree, summa cum laude, in East Asian History from the University of California, Davis. His wife, Gail Chang Bohr, is the Executive Director of the Children's Law Center of Minnesota. They have two children.