Thanks to funding from the Freeman Foundation over 140 Lawrence University students and 80 Lawrence University faculty had the opportunity to participate in a variety of trips to East Asia over four years. The purpose of these trips was to increase campus-wide interest in and knowledge of Asia, especially of East and Southeast Asia.

Three of these trips targeted faculty teaching in the Freshman Studies Program and introductory history and social science classes to provide large groups of non-specialists with basic exposure to contemporary Asian countries and their rich cultural heritages. Led by faculty familiar with the area to be visited, they feature visits to places of current and historical interest where participants interacted with local experts in academia, the arts, business, and government. Their goal was to encourage more interest in Asia on campus and promote additional coverage of the area in the curriculum.

Other student-faculty trips were smaller, more informal affairs devised by faculty and students with some knowledge of the region who wished to conduct on-site course work or engage in research and scholarly collaboration. Trips of this sort, which were scheduled in during term breaks and summers, largely supplimented existing courses and offered a means of expanding study beyond the traditional classroom into the field. Examples were the Classsical Gardens study tour to Nara and Kyoto, Japan and Suzhou and Shanghai, China; Tibetan religious studies and linguistics study tour and two capitals study tour inot Nara and Kyoto, Japan and Xian and Beijing, China.