Our Teaching Spotlight allows The Collaborative to recognize Trinity faculty and teaching staff who are demonstrating thoughtful and innovative teaching practices. We hope these features also serve to remind us of our shared commitment to meaningful and intentional pedagogy.

How would you finish the following sentence: being a professor at Trinity means… 

… “that I have the honor and the responsibility to share my knowledge of China with some of the brightest and most inquisitive minds in the country.” Dr. Field reflects on the value of being at Trinity as he didn't initially see himself here, he was prepared to continue his journey at Rice University in Houston, Texas; however, Trinity was the first university to incorporate the Chinese language at a higher level that he was looking for. Dr. Field’s specialty is ancient China and two of the four languages used for his PhD was Chinese (modern and classical). Due to this, a lot of his books deal with modern and classical Chinese texts. Trinity has given him, as a program leader, everything he's asked for. The program started rather small with a singular Mandarin professor, and by the early 2000s, the program expanded into acquiring four professors which was an unexpected (yet pleasant) change!

You are most notable for kickstarting the Chinese program here at Trinity which was rare for the time (1995) when only two universities in the state were able to boast the language as a major offering. What was that process like and how do you think it has impacted Trinity, the students here, as well as San Antonio as a whole?  

"When I arrived at Trinity in the fall of 1990, the University of Texas at Austin was the only institution in Texas with a Chinese major. Due to the rapid increase in enrollments in the new Chinese program, the Modern Languages department hired a second Chinese faculty member in 1995, allowing us to establish our major. Enrollments continued to grow over the years, and peaked following the 2008 Beijing Olympics, allowing the department to hire one more full-time faculty. Then, in 2008, as part of the Capital Campaign, two new endowed faculty positions were created, one in Chinese language and literature and one in Chinese business—the only such position in an American liberal arts college. That brought our number of faculty in the Chinese program up to four, making Trinity’s Chinese language program one of the largest for liberal arts colleges in the US. Also in conjunction with the Capital Campaign, we created the East Asian Studies at Trinity (EAST) interdisciplinary program and established a new EAST major in Chinese Studies, effectively giving students two options—a standard Chinese language major for those who plan to combine language study with another major such as business, and a more rigorous stand-alone degree with coursework selected from eight departments across campus—history, religion, philosophy, art history, communication, and business, in addition to modern languages. The initial reason for the Chinese Studies degree was to adequately prepare Chinese K-12 teachers for their state certification exam (which requires expertise in language as well as culture). Trinity is one of only three universities in the State of Texas to certify Chinese language teachers. Until recently, we graduated approximately 10 majors per year, a demand driven mainly by students seeking jobs with companies doing business in China. It is this demand that drove the creation of our faculty-led study abroad program in Shanghai in 2012, so students would have the opportunity to conduct business internships in China. Last year we returned to Shanghai after a 5-year hiatus due to COVID. Trinity is one of the few US universities to still have a joint program with a Chinese university. Our partner—Shanghai Jiao Tong University—is commonly known as the MIT of China."

You have a very interesting and holistic background. From being raised on a farm in West Texas which you’ve credited your early interest in nature, to your discovery of nature poetry in college during your time as a major in English studying the Daoist philosopher, Lao Tzu– how does your background shape your research and teaching? What do you hope that your students gain from your way of living and learning?  

"Not only did I grow up on a farm in West Texas, after beginning college I returned to the farm every summer to work for my father, planting and cultivating the sorghum, and harvesting the wheat. It is this connection to the land that has always driven my life choices. Thus, when choosing to study English literature in college, I was drawn to nature poetry since I grew up surrounded by fields of grain and pastures roaming with cattle. When it came time to choose a topic for my Ph.D. dissertation, I chose to study the image of the farmer in Chinese literature. Like the pastoral tradition of poetry in the West, Chinese literati romanticized rural life as a counterpoint to the hectic life of the court official. However, instead of playing the role of shepherds like pastoral poets in the West, in their verse the Chinese poets adopted the persona of the hard-working farmer. My dissertation, in fact, identified Chinese 'ruralism' as a new version in the global history of pastoral poetry. Chinese nature poets, including the ruralists, were guided intellectually by Daoist philosophy, which extolled the virtues of zi ran, 'naturalness,' as opposed to the official Confucian world of the court. That has been my creed since I first laid eyes on Chinese poetry—the life of the mind is best enjoyed in the solitude of nature. While a graduate student at UT Austin, I put a down payment on a plot of land in the Texas Hill Country, and there spent my weekends, sitting under a 250-year-old Live Oak tree, reading and taking notes on a yellow legal pad. After graduation, I took a position at the College of William and Mary, where I established their Chinese major. The year before tenure at W&M, I took the position at Trinity to found their Chinese program. Little did I know that 20 years after buying that little piece of paradise, when the mortgage had matured, I was able to realize the dream of building my home in the Texas Hill Country. Last year marked the 20th year I have lived on Sage Hill with my wife and three dogs. 

As for how all of this impacts my teaching, I can share the following story. My first book publication was a translation and annotation of a 4th-century BCE poem called the 'Heaven Questions,' the single most comprehensive catalogue of ancient Chinese mythology and legend. A portion of the poem questioned the origin and design of the cosmos, and it became clear to scholars that the poet was probably basing his questions on the design and function of an ancient astronomical instrument called a shipan. The existence of the shipan was only speculation until the 20th century discovery of a version of the instrument in a Han dynasty (c. 200 BCE) tomb. In the process of translating the poem, I also became an authority on the function of the shipan and named it a 'cosmograph,' which is now the standard designation of that instrument. In my study, I learned that the cosmograph was the precursor to the fengshui compass and consequently embarked on a study of that ancient art. One of my scholarly pursuits after taking the job at Trinity was to conduct a translation of the 3rd century CE Book of Burial, the veritable 'Bible' of fengshui, and the earliest extant text on the subject. In 1998, I also created a webpage called Professor Field’s Fengshui Gate, where I posted articles I had published on the subject, including the Book of Burial. Thus, when I finally built my home in 2005, I oriented it on the property according to ancient Form School theories and arranged the rooms of the house according to Compass School theories. It is undoubtedly the most accurately oriented house in North America! To conclude my story, in 2019 I created a course at Trinity called EAST 2316 The Folk Ecology of Fengshui, which is the only such course taught in US universities. I normally take my students on a field trip to Bamberger Ranch in Blanco County to teach them Form School fengshui theories and then conclude with a cookout on Sage Hill so they can see how to properly orient a house to those ancient theories."

As Dr. Field reflected further on growing up in the countryside, he spoke fondly of his environment, further reflecting his gratitude, “the skies are dark which means you can see the stars vividly… growing up in the countryside, i was always aware of the stars." When he studied ancient Chinese culture, he realized the prevalence and importance of stars– they are a big part of religion, sun worshippers and the rising sun being two examples. What he saw as a child, he then began to conceptualize it a bit differently. It's why he now lives on a hill, in the countryside, where he can see the stars.

You are an active member in the Association for Asian Studies and serve on the board of directors for the Southwest Conference on Asian Studies. Additionally, here at Trinity, you are the Director of the EAST Program and Faculty Adviser of the Chinese Culture Club. What do these organizations and roles mean to/for you? What kind of connections are you making, conversations you’re having, and communities you’re bridging? 

"I have been a member of the Southwest Conference on Asian Studies (SWCAS) since I was a graduate student at UT Austin in the late ‘70s. Over the years, the organization has published conference proceedings and journals, and my very first scholarly publication appeared there. As a regional arm of the international Association for Asian Studies, it is a local venue for scholarly presentations about Asia. Trinity has sponsored the conference on our campus three times, most recently in 2016, when for the first time in the conference’s history we featured an undergraduate panel. Now, Trinity regularly organizes a panel of our students to share their work with regional scholars at SWCAS. In addition to Trinity’s annual participation in SWCAS, we are also long-time members of the national ASIANetwork, a consortium of over 140 Asian Studies programs in liberal arts colleges across the country. In 2025, we hosted the national ASIANetwork Conference for the second time, with 250+ attendees from 80+ peer institutions. Here, we also organized undergraduate panels for our students.

As I mentioned before, the EAST Program is the academic home of the Chinese Studies major, the more rigorous of our two majors for the study of Chinese. However, what is most well-known about the program is the work we do across campus to promote Asia and Asian America. For example, EAST sponsors the First Year Experience known as 'Being Young in Asia,' which offers a nuanced understanding of what it means to be young in Asia today, as well as how Asian youth are represented in various discourses. Students end the semester by conducting independent research and, unique for our FYE, they present that research on a themed panel in our featured Being Young in Asia Student Conference. Other important activities of the East Asian Studies interdisciplinary program are as follows:

1. We created a new course titled Asian Americans and Translingual Identities (EAST 2321) which examines how growing up with more than one language shapes identity, community, and experience, exploring how language influences belonging, cultural expression, and everyday life.

2. We built from scratch a faculty/staff book club for Asian-themed readings (with the Collaborative). 

3. We sponsor an EAST oral history initiative (with University Archives) that trains and hires Trinity students to conduct interviews of East Asian alumni, faculty, and staff.

4. We biannually organize an EAST alumni weekend history harvest (with Alumni Affairs). 

5. We annually conduct an AAPI Heritage Month exhibit (with Coates Library).

6. We organize an AAPI Special Graduation ceremony (with Student Involvement), 

7. We sponsor the Asian Culture Living Community (with Residential Life)—the  second largest such community on campus."

What else would you like to share?

His greatest interest in Classical Chinese literature is divination, the ability for humans to look to the future to determine what’s coming. As part of this he encountered The Book of Changes (YiJiang, 19thIChiang), the oldest continuously used book in divination in the world. It fascinated him, when he graduated college in 1974 his best friend gave him two books– the 19th century translation of The Book of Changes was one of them. He not only read it in Chinese after two years of college level classes, he eventually translated the book. Zhou Dynasty - ZhouYi, one of the most difficult books, took him 10 years to translate and it was published in Germany. The concept of feng shui is based on The Book of Changes; you can't understand the art of feng shui if you don’t understand the book of changes. Feng shui is tied to the land, so it was a natural area of interest for him. Can you look at a piece of land and find the chi? How do you intuit the flow of Chi and the land? It all made perfect sense to him since he was an expert in living these principles already through his childhood and his intentional daily living practices.