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HomeThai Princess Dedicates Gift at Knight Library
July 18, 2006
Her Royal Highness Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol of Thailand dedicated a gift of books from the Thai Royal Family to the University of Oregon Libraries on Sunday, July 16. The ceremony was held in the South Reading Room of Knight Library.
Her Royal Highness is the granddaughter of His Royal Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand.
The gift of books consists of more than 1,700 items on Thai language and culture from the personal collections of Thailand’s Crown Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, Grand Chamberlain Khwankeo Vajarodaya, and other Thai government and academic leaders. About three-fourths of the books have been added to the UO Libraries’ research collections; the remaining books have been placed in the Eugene and Springfield public libraries.
Other Highlights of the Visit
During her visit to the area, the princess also opened an exhibition at the UO’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art celebrating the 60th anniversary of the king's accession to the throne and helped launch a new initiative adding math and science to the university's highly successful distance-learning program in partnership with Thai public school teachers.
Her visit represented the first royalty to visit the UO campus in more than forty years. The last time the university hosted an official royal visit was in 1960, when King Mahendra and Queen Ratna of Nepal came to thank faculty members in the university's College of Education for help in establishing the country's public school system.
"We are supremely honored by this visit from Her Royal Highness Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol of Thailand," said University of Oregon President Dave Frohnmayer. "We are deeply grateful to be singled out as the first university in the country to receive an official visit from a member of the Thai royal family during the 60th anniversary year of His Royal Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej's accession to the throne."
"We are also thankful beyond measure to be the recipient of such an extraordinary gift from Thailand," Frohnmayer said. "These wonderful books conveying the culture and history of Thailand embody both King Bhumibol Adulyadej's dedication to the value of education and the warm friendship we have developed with the Thai people through our distance learning program."
Thai Librarians Catalog Donated Books
Thailand made the gift of books last spring. At the time, two Thai librarians came to Eugene for two months to catalog and provide translation for bibliographic information. The books were prepared and sent by the Rajaprajanugroh Foundation Under Royal Patronage, the Thai Distance Learning Foundation and the Royal Palace. The U.S.-Thai Distance Learning Foundation facilitated the gift, and a team of Thai students at the university served as translators and provided other assistance.
Among the books--most of which are in the Thai language--are several rare and unique items, including a very limited-edition book of the late King Chulalongkorn's photographs of 19th-century Thailand with his personally handwritten comments.
"Because of the rarity and significance of this material, the gift symbolizes a growing relationship based on an international friendship that will benefit students in both countries for years to come," said Deb Carver, Philip H. Knight Dean of Libraries.
The gift was made as part of the 60th anniversary celebration of the king's accession to the throne, said Suebsang, of the U.S.-Thai Distance Learning Foundation, the organization which coordinated the gift. Suebsang said the gift's objectives are to celebrate the many connections among Thailand, the royal family, the University of Oregon and the Eugene-Springfield area; to promote understanding between the people of the two countries; and to increase access to and visibility of Thai materials for Thai students and American students studying the Thai language and culture.
UO-Thai Relations
Both the gift and the royal visit reflect the close relationship between Thailand, the Eugene-Springfield community, and the university. These relationships grew in part from a distance-learning program developed by Leslie Opp-Beckman and other faculty members of the university's American English Institute. Opp-Beckman, a senior instructor at the institute, created a videoconference series for Thai teachers of English in 2002 at the request of the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok and the Royal Thai Distance Learning Foundation, which is sponsored and charged by the king to improve education for all Thai citizens, especially those in rural areas.
Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Russ Tomlin, who coordinated the campus portion of the princess's royal visit, says the trip and the relationships behind it have broader implications for the university's Asia initiative, which seeks to boost educational offerings and expertise on the fast-growing region.
"The relationship with Thailand creates opportunities to expand the university's engagement not just in Thailand but in other parts of Southeast Asia as well," Tomlin said.
Distance-Learning Program Reaches 10,000 Thai Schools
The teacher-instructional series developed at the university has been broadcast to more than 10,000 public primary and secondary schools throughout Thailand and its border regions near Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Yunnan, China. The effort has been so successful that Thailand asked the university to develop new distance-learning programs for math and science.
Because of the success and growth of the distance-learning program in Thailand, the Thai Distance Learning Foundation in 2004 supported creation of a non-profit organization dedicated to building connections and enabling transfer of knowledge between the U.S. and Thailand. The U.S.-Thai Distance Learning Organization's (DLO) headquarters is in Eugene. The DLO's directors are Veerakarn Suebsang, a graduate student at the university, and Valaya and Richard Lindholm.
The first videoconference in the new distance-learning series will be broadcast live from the university's Knight Library on Sunday afternoon to schools in Thailand. It will feature lessons in green chemistry and inquiry-based physics integrated with mathematics. Faculty members participating in the broadcast will be Ken Doxsee, professor of chemistry; Dean Livelybrooks, senior instructor in physics; Jill Baxter, associate professor of math education; and Leslie Opp-Beckman, senior instructor in the American English Institute.
Opp-Beckman leads similar distance-learning initiatives in Egypt, the Middle East, South Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa.
"Distance-learning is not a perfect model," she said. "But the University of Oregon is pioneering this approach to making education accessible in the most remote reaches of developing countries."
In preparation for the new math and science series, Opp-Beckman traveled to Thailand last year with University of Oregon math and science professors to visit schools and meet with teachers.
"We visited rural schools where there are no teachers," she said. "The kids gather in small schools to receive their lessons from the teachers who are involved in our training program, via television. The Thai government recognizes that the best situation would be well-trained teachers, but in the face of the acute teacher shortage, what the king is trying to do is to get education and training out to these schools through technology."
"One of the king's goals is to have all Thai citizens educated in English as well as Thai, which is also an increasing goal across Asia, including Korea and China," says Tomlin. "The king has committed to education for two reasons-as a value in itself and as a value for the development of Thai social and economic institutions."