Princeton in Asia (PiA) is a nonprofit organization that helps recent college

graduates Graduation is the awarding of a diploma to a student by an educational institution. It may also refer to the ceremony that is associated with it. The date of the graduation ceremony is often called graduation day. The graduation ceremony is a ...

obtain yearlong jobs with educational institutions, businesses, media organizations, and

NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

s throughout

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

. It is among the better-known organizations of its kind; the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' has characterized it as being similar to programs such as the Japan Exchange and Teaching program, the

Peace Corps The Peace Corps is an independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to provide international development assistance. It was established in March 1961 by an executive order of President John F. ...

, and

WorldTeach WorldTeach was a non-governmental organization that provided opportunities for individuals to live and work as volunteer teachers in developing countries. Approximately 300 volunteers were annually placed in year-long and summer programs, with m ...

. PiA is an independent affiliate of

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, and only about a third of the PiA fellows in recent years have been Princeton alumni. PiA's roots reach back to 1898, when a group of Princeton undergraduates founded "Princeton in Peking" in support of the

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

. Among the best known of the participants was Sidney D. Gamble. Its name was changed to the "Princeton-Yenching Foundation" in 1923. In 1949,

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

closed its doors to the organization, which turned its efforts towards other parts of Asia and renamed itself "Princeton in Asia" in 1955. (PiA has since reestablished a large presence in China.) PiA hired its first full-time executive director in 1970, and the organization grew dramatically in the 1970s and 1980s. In 2015, PiA placed 142 fellows in nineteen countries, including Cambodia, China/Hong Kong, Timor-Leste, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Laos, Mongolia, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Princeton-in-Asia is no longer a missionary organization, but as former PiA executive director Carrie Gordon remarked in 1998, "our mission statement written in 1911 hasn't changed." In 2021, the spirit of the mission remains the same, though it has been updated to the following:

Summer of Service

Summer of Service ("SOS") is an annual English immersion program held during the summer at the Normal College of Jishou University in

Jishou Jishou (; Tujia: Jiersouv) is a county-level city and the seat of Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Hunan province, China. Located on the west of the province, the city is bordered to the northwest by Huayuan and Baojing Counties, ...

Hunan Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi to ...

, China. It was founded by a Princeton student, Rory Truex, in 2005 and is sponsored by Princeton in Asia.

References

External links

Princeton in Asia website
{{Authority control United States friendship associations Princeton University