A gift of $180,000 from Kevin Brine, senior vice president and member of the Board of Directors, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., and his wife Madeline will assist the New York University libraries to launch an initiative to acquire core materials in the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages and to strengthen its East Asian collections in Western languages. This initiative is in response to the tremendous surge of interest in East Asian languages, literature, history, economics and culture and is in keeping with NYU’s mission to serve as the quintessential global university.
Mr. Brine, who is a scholar of Eastern religion and philosophy, and his wife have been especially interested in materials relating to Japan. The Brines’ contribution will enable the NYU Libraries to hire an East Asian Studies Librarian, with particular expertise in Japanese studies, to build a core collection for that field.
The East Asian Studies Program at NYU is under the direction of renowned Japanologist Harry Harootunian and offers courses on Japan, China, Korea, and Vietnam, with a primary focus on language and literature. Other academic programs in East Asian law, business and other fields also will be greatly enhanced with the expansion of this collection.
“Kevin Brine has been, and continues to be, enormously generous to the NYU Libraries, not only through his gifts to create several endowment and acquisitions funds but also by virtue of the time, talent, and enthusiasm he has shown us,” said Carol Mandel, Dean of the Libraries. “We are delighted by his interest in helping us develop a program to support scholarship on East Asia, since our needs are growing greatly in this area.”