The Southeast Asia Program (SEAP) was founded in 1950 to promote the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge about countries, cultures and languages of the region. Its twenty core and eight emeritus faculty members have collective knowledge of Southeast Asia, which amounts to one of the world’s greatest concentrations of expertise on this region. Six language lecturers teach 4 levels of study i
n Burmese, Indonesian, Khmer, Tagalog, Thai, and Vietnamese. Department of Education continuously recognized SEAP as a Title VI National Resource Center. As an NRC for more than six decades, we train experts on the region; meet strategic national needs in government, business, science, and professional fields; and provide K-16 educational outreach. As of August 15, 2025, fourth-year allocated Title VI funding has not been received. Echols Collection on Southeast Asia, the George McT. Kahin Center for Advanced Research on Southeast Asia, and SEAP Publications. The first is the largest collection on the region (over 500,000 monographs in 162 indigenous languages). The Kahin Center is an academic home to SEAP graduate students, visiting fellows and scholars, faculty members and SEAP's Publication and Outreach offices. SEAP publishes Southeast Asian monographs and language textbooks, including the only journal exclusively on Indonesia. It also makes downloads of its Cornell Modern Indonesia Project (CMIP) and SEAP Data papers accessible gratis.
