Asian Student Council

A need for the entire W&M campus to come together

2009-04-05T14:01:00.000-07:00

To my dear friends and colleagues at W&M,

For those of you who have not heard, a terrible tragedy happened today at Binghampton, NY, a tragedy that took the lives of 14 people, including the shooter who shot himself. The man was Vietnamese American and for some reason nobody knows at this moment, he opened fire at an immigration office. More details in the news links provided below:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7982444.stm

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/04/03/binghamton.shooting/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/hostage_shooting

Words can't express the emotions that I'm going through right now except that it served as a wake up call for me to take this action and call upon all of you to have an open forum. The media may or may not blow this out of proportion, but I have emailed all of you and the organizations that you stand for to come together to discuss this event. Many of you I have talked with directly, some who I haven't (and others who don't know who I am but I'm emailing you anyways), but I believe this issue affects us all. It raises serious questions about the status of America that involves the issue of immigration, a recent trend of Asian American men wreaking violence upon people with little emotion, and the recent increase of distressed men in general who are killing people (as evidenced by the Alabama shooting that happened last month).

While this event directly affects the Asian American community in terms of the identity of the gunman and where the violence took place, the issue of immigration and people who are perceived to be perpetual dangerous foreigners is not unique only to Asians. And in the grand picture, the recent increase of violence occurring in school shootings, to family members, and to people who did not deserve such violence show that this NY incident is another one in a string of mass killings that makes me question if people have lost hope in this world, regardless of their ethnicity and where they come from. In the last month, these string of attacks in the U.S. left 44 people dead in all.

My goal is to bring as many organizations and community leaders together in one room to talk about all of these issues. Whether if it's the Student Assembly, MSA, MAC, or ASC, this NY shooting is only a reminder to have a conversation together because I believe we are all affected by this.

I know this is an incredibly short notice but please let me know as soon as possible if you and/or your organization would like to participate. My proposal is that we talk about this as soon as possible and ASC has agreed to lend their meeting time to have this forum.

April 6th Monday 7pm @ Washington 305
Thank you all for taking the time to read this and once again, please get back to me quickly if you are interested. I wish you all only the best and I hope you all have a wonderful day.

-Originally written by Eddy Hong

Congratulations to Newly Elected ASC Officers 2009-2010

2009-04-01T15:09:00.000-07:00

Co-chairpersons: Agatha Kang & Kristian Obcemane

Treasurer: Jade Park

ASC Open Forum

2009-03-30T20:22:00.000-07:00

Due to some unforeseen events and much discussion, ASC decided to have an "emergency" forum where all the ASC officers and the Councilors can sit down and just talk ASC. An ASC open forum was held Friday, March 27th. Here were some of the points discussed during the forum.

7:17 PM

Moderated by Mike Paik and Ben Yoo

Meeting Minutes Collected by Sewon Chung

Present –19 people

I. Introductory Address

- Rules and regulations of the open forum

Thanks to the presidents for caring about our community and working towards building a better council.
We want a forum of open-conversation in a comfortable respectable matter, focusing in constructive feedback.

II. Discussion, Proposal, and Inquiry

1. What is the role and purpose of an Asian Student Council?

a. How should the council be defined? As a governing body between the six Asian-American organizations? As an active organization/executive board itself? As representatives and spokesmen for the collective Asian-American community?

b. What are its ideals, what does it represent, and what does it stand for?

We ought to take into account what is truly feasible, given the council member’s other responsibilities as Presidents of organizations. It is a massive task to represent all six organizations because it is difficult to even fully represent one country.
ASC ought to be an umbrella helping facilitate coordination and community amongst various Asian organizations.
We should reexamine the constitution and clarify the purpose of ASC.
There is flexibility in electing individuals to represent the council but the council should accept that the ASC is not a puppet council nor are the ASC officers puppets that just do what the councilors want.
ASC has legitimacy on campus and this network can provide a voice for Asian/Asian Americans. It is not about cultural representation (dance, shows, etc.) but a way to challenge the campus to better understand the diverse experience of Asians/Asian Americans.
ASC officials should represent the six organization

It may be counterproductive to add more positions
Previous ASC officers comment that it has been interesting to see the official positions increase.

The Co-Chairperson’s direction in the past has been presenting their ideas and engaging in a dialogue with the council members about these ideas. It is their responsibility to put on events.

Should ASC be guided by the official ideas or should it be a force that brings the organization together to support their events.

In the past, ASC did a lot to unify the groups by working off the drive of council members.

It is positive that the ASC officials take responsibility over event planning.
Co-chairs should work on delegating responsibilities
Members and councilors have noticed a marked decrease in attendance of councilors.

For example, Yellow Rage was brought up at the meeting but only 2 councilors present.
Councilors defend that there was an overlapping event the week of voting for Yellow Rage

In the future, the organizations seeking ASC funding or support ought to contact ASC officials a week in advance and the ASC officials should notify the councilors

In case of emergency funding requests, there should be a way to deal with this. Perhaps we could call emergency meetings of the councilors to vote on a decision.
Or should we do vote through e-mail?

There should be rules, not necessarily penalty, for absence of councilors. They should understand their duty as ASC councilors. AND everyone needs to be ON time. If they will be late, they should communicate this to the co-chairpersons.

Rules of Voting

4 out of 6 organizations present

Able to use ASC liaisons to vote

Liaison under the President’s jurisdiction
Liaison’s judgment? Or President’s decision?

Regularly attending

What counts as an attendance and an absence?

Honoring the time of the presidents, do not schedule meetings when you know Presidents will be busy à Article VI.

Presidents as well should submit their schedule so meetings can be scheduled accordingly.

What about when not enough time is given? Any requests involving money should have an official appropriation.

Must occur 10 days before the event à form?
Two chances for meeting, must be discussed

What about last-minute emergencies?

Vote through email? Needs a formal procedure however.
Usage of the corem – calling emergency meeting.

Possible review of actions?

Presidents should make more use of ASC Liaisons.

Liaisons are freshman—ASC leaders should support their growth
Liaisons are allowed to vote in place of the President

ASC officials should take into consideration scheduling conflict and hold meetings at times when Presidents are availablel

ASC officials should provide the councilors with a schedule of ASC events so that the Presidents are aware in advance

Perhaps last year’s ASC leadership fractured ASC unity…

How can we reconnect? How can we hold together these different and unique organizations?
The formalization of ASC has perhaps hurt the cohesive nature of ASC in the past.

Perhaps the issue at hand is the lack of trust and community support amongst the ASC community as a whole

ASC Co-chairpersons should work harder to create ad-hoc committees and perhaps work harder to delegate responsibilities

ASC has a membership of PRESIDENTS. Why not make use of that?

What type of environment do we want ASC meetings to be?

Do we want to invite the rest of the campus community or should our meetings be for the councilors?

Perhaps some meetings should be open and some should be closed.
How can we increase transparency?

Perhaps ASC can have weekly meetings to continually keep in touch with ASC organizations and this would increase the circle of trust

Perhaps we can have small intimate meetings so that people feel the responsibility of their presence
People need to show up on time
Alternating meetings between Councilors and Open meetings
Majority of meetings should be a brainstorming session, to receive inputs and ideas

ASC positions: How about Special Events Chair and Communications Chair?

Lack of distinction amongst positions
What is the potential of organizational presidents, ASC officials, and ASC as a council?

How can we bring ASC to its full potential?

Let’s get people to STEP UP.

We should have a meeting with old and new presidents, each organization gets one vote

It was a very long meeting but it was great to get together to talk openly and freely about all the issues, concerns and possible course of actions that ASC can take in the future. We got a lot done and I think everyone felt a lot better. Open forums are definitely good and should be held more regularly next year.

ASC Meeting Minutes for 02/23/08

2009-02-24T13:55:00.001-08:00

Hello ASC!

Just wanted to send out the minutes from yesterday's meeting:

1. Horizons Committee Meeting - Next Monday, March 2nd @ 7pm, Washington 305

FASA: Scriptwriter - Kristian Obcemane, Choreographer - Ellaine Enriquez
KASA: Scriptwriter - Agatha Kang + Sam Shin, Choreographer - Seung Lee
SASA: Scriptwriter - Sonam Shah + Anushree Banerjee, Choreographer - Monica Gupta
VSA: Scriptwriter - Justin Hoag, Choreographer - ???
CSO: Scriptwriter - Jessica Wu + Adam Wong, Choreographer – Kristen Wong
JCA: Scriptwriter - Chad Bruce, Choreographer - Niji Ohno

It is crucial for everyone that is involved with Horizons to come to the meeting next week. If you can't make it to the meeting, please e-mail me or Eddy Hong (eddyhong@gmail.com). Eddy Hong, Malisa Savanh and Adam Wong will be heading the production of Horizons. For the Horizons PR Committee, me and Sewon will be heading it and we decided to bring together all the PR chairs from each organizations. Presidents, please notify your PR chairs ASAP and inform them. PR will also be meeting on Monday the 2nd, same time, same place. This is important. It'll be fun :] If I'm feeling it, I'll bring cookies. Obviously, anyone who is interested is welcome to come join in.

2. Yellow Rage

I'm excited to hear that IPAX is bringing back Yellow Rage, a duo of Asian American spoken word poets based out of Philadelphia. ASC was the main sponsor of the event last year and they put on a great performance. This year, ASC will be one of the sponsors for the event. I have no doubt that it will be a fantastic show and I encourage all of you to youtube some of their stuff. Yellow Rage will be performing on March 20th at SC Tidewaters. More info of the event will come.

3. ASC T-Shirts
Yes. We are trying to create an ASC t-shirt this year, something that has yet to be achieved. If you are interested or know someone that is interested in designing a shirt, please contact Sewon (sxchun@wm.edu). Some designs are already in the making and hopefully by the end of the year, we'll have something to show!

4. ASC Social
Since there aren't any social events during the spring semester for ASC, the e-board was thinking of creating some type of social event for everyone. Right now, it looks like we might hold a potluck, but if there are any social events that you would like to see, send forth your ideas and we can work something out!

Alright, those are the main points of the meeting! Those that are part of Horizons, PLEASE remember to come to the meeting next week!!

Take care,

Jess Wu

Horizons Planning

2009-02-05T19:25:00.000-08:00

Horizons. Saturday April 4th. Save the date!!

This is Eddy's email...since we didn't take meeting minutes for the meeting on Monday (2/1), this will suffice as a summary of what we're trying to do with Horizons this year:
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey ASC,

Thanks for those who came out today at the meeting and for those who weren't able to make it...here are some things we went over for the Horizons event:

-- Forming Three committees for the Horizon event: Scriptwriting, Dance, and Publicity --

Scriptwriting
Each organization choose a scriptwriter to write a 8-10 minute segment that pertains to their organization.

The theme is that of the experience and perceptions of Asian Americans in Asia.

This pertains to the cultural clashes that occur when Asian Americans who are completely Americanized return to their country of heritage. What happens when these Asian Americans only know how to speak English and their cultural values reflect more of America? How would Asians perceive these Asian Americans? How do Asian Americans perceive these Asians? The major characters from last year's Horizons will be used again as this year's show will be a sequel. Attached to this email is the script from last year's show so please look through that and get an idea where you want the story and charactersto continue. We are looking for prejudices and misconceptions that are unique to each country so discuss amongst your fellow peers who would be up to writing a script. Although the topic is pretty serious and thought-provoking, our goal is to entertain the audience.

If possible, I would like to have each organization choose a scriptwriter by next Monday February 9th. Please email me who your organization's scriptwriter will be to my email address at eshong@wm.edu. By doing so, I can effectively organize a scriptwriter's committee meeting as soon as possible.

Dance
Each organization choose a choreographer that has an extensive or pretty good knowledge of the dance styles found in their respective country that they represent.

The theme of the dance is that of fusion, where we combine the dance styles of all six Asian organizations into one massive choreographed movement. The Asian American element is mostly that of hip hop and so by the end, we have a dance that combines not only six different syles of dancing but the traditional and the modern.

Once again, I would like to have each organization choose a choreographer by next Monday February 9th. Email me who that person will be to my email address and so I can organize a choreographer committee meeting and get started on this right away.

Publicity
Jessica Wu and Se Won Chung will take charge of the publicity for the show, but this will be the final step of the Horizons process. Stay tuned for emails from them about how we are going to advertise this event not only within the college campus but to the greater Virginia area.

Considering the ambitious scope of this year's Horizons, I strongly encourage everybody start cracking on this right away. I know we are slowly becoming swamped with schoolwork and responsibilities to our own organization's events, but the sooner we work on this, the less we have to stress when April comes around.

ASC Winter Formal 2008 Presents...ELEGANCE

2008-11-12T20:18:00.000-08:00

It has FINALLY been decided!
ASC is co-hosting with HCO, MAC & SA Diversity Initiatives this year to bring you "Elegance"
The formal will take place next week, Saturday Nov. 22 @ the Alumni House from 9 PM - 1AM. Tickets will be sold at the Campus Center next week, Monday - Friday @ 11-7. $8 for individuals or $12 for couples in advance or $10 for individuals or $15 for couples at the door.

ASC Winter Formal is probably the best formal ever. It's going to be bangin' :]

Honestly though, every one always have such a good time - it's a great event, and always fun to see people dress up and look hot. Bring a friend (you don't need a date) and be prepared to have an amazing night!

ASC Meeting Minutes for 11/03/08

2008-11-04T14:44:00.000-08:00

Meeting minutes

ASC Date Auction Feedback (What was good/bad & What could have been changed):

MC should keep things moving, not have so many awkward pauses and not be too embarrassing
Turn out was pretty amazing and we were able to raise a
Next time we cosponsor events, we need to make sure the work is divided evenly between the organizations
Mixed feelings about the circular tables (I personally liked them...but probably need more seating?)
More decorations because the place was kinda boring looking
Starting bid was too high
Sparkling cider & cake was good

Winter Formal:

Cosponsoring with HCO and the SA Diversity Initiatives
Will take place on Saturday, Nov. 22 @ the Alumni House
Tickets will go on sale the week of the formal (possibly even 1.5 weeks in advance). Tickets sold in advance will be priced at $8 (individual) and $12 (couple). Tickets sold at the door will be priced at $10 (individual) and $15 (couple). This year, we are thinking about going to every organization's meeting to sell tickets.
Organizations should sign up for ticket selling. Will get that out to everyone soon.
THEMES. NAMES. IDEAS. CLICK HERE: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=4JNmte7JUZ4R1lagrn9Mtw_3d_3d
How can we make the formal better? Ideas: Professional photography or even just some type of backdrop. Better food choices? (appetizers)

Horizons

Will take place on Saturday, April 4th @ the SC Commonwealth
Still want to continue with the play type format as opposed to a skit and dances. Want to have it tied together in well, so it's cohesive and not choppy. Possible sequel from last years - students go study abroad and the problems they need to deal with when they return "home"
Need to organize a Horizon's committee
Need a writer that can possibly put everything together
More AV/film segments

Possible Events for Next Semester (or in the future):

Huge Fusion Dance performance
Bring Yellow Rage back?
Speakers --

Memories of iLL-Literacy

2008-11-02T21:25:00.000-08:00

(This entry was originally written on November 2nd, 2008, but I was never able to finish it because I got...distracted. ANYWAYS.)

Wow. Simply wow.

The iLL-Literacy concert was an event to truly remember and for those who came to watch them on November 1st at the College of William & Mary, it is without a doubt that all of the audience members left the auditorium with one of the sickest, freshest performances this campus has to offer.

So where did it all begin?

Jessica Wu and I attended ECAASU last year at Cornell University and iLL-Literacy was one of the performers for that massive event. Suffice to say, I loved every minute of it, from the hiliarious "Text Messaging" to the brutal "Self-Hatred's Soliloquy"

I also need to make a note that after iLL-Literacy finished their performance, a friend and I snuck backstage and got a picture with them as well as getting all of their autographs. That was tight. But going on with the story...

About half a year later, little did I know that the formerly known UCAB was bringing iLL-Literacy to the College of William & Mary. Since Jessica Wu was also the co-president of ASC and the fact that many of their members are of Asian descent, it made sense to have a co-sponsorship with ASC. Along with the Office of Multicultural Affairs, IPAX (the International Performance Arts eXchange) was brought onboard and had the permission to create an opener for the event. Everything was in place.

Since I'm writing this nearly 3 months after the event happened, I can say that the audience participation was not as high as we had expected. But the more important thing is that the people who did attend, everyone loved it and after the show, all of us could not wait to get the performers' autographs and talk with them in general.

What was even better was that the group wanted a place to hang out and have fun, and eventually Michael Paik, our very own ASC treasurer, agreed to host the party at his place. Suffice to say, good times were to be had by all who were able to come.

iLL-Literacy

2008-10-28T17:15:00.000-07:00

Along side with UCAB and IPAX, ASC is bringing spoken-word group iLL-Literacy to the WM campus, Saturday, November 1 @ SC Commonwealth 8 PM

Here's their description on their website:

In the age of empty words—where millions log in to comment on videos of iguanas skateboarding, where entire television series’ are based on who can blurt out the most grotesque diss on someone’s mother, where there exists such a thing as cell phones for babies, it seems everyone has something to say. But who’s really listening?

Enter iLL-Literacy—a collective of poets, emcees, and all-around fresh individuals—with a mission that seems simple enough: to have something to say, and for people not only listen, but want to listen.

Call it spoken word, call it hip-hop theater, but never call it typical, the crew consists of Adriel Luis, Dahlak Brathwaite, Nico Cary and Ruby Veridiano-Ching—four artists who harbor impressive accolades in their own rights. Since the four officially debuted their tour as a collective at the American University of Paris in 2005, iLL-Literacy has swept the corners of the globe with a delicious blend of lyrical verse, innovative theatrics, and an addictive approach to audience interaction that has kept the crew traveling nonstop.

iLL-Literacy has covered much ground in a short time, rocking stages from off-Broadway New York to London’s Picadilly, to its home base in the California Bay Area. News of the amazing talent has drawn attention from HBO’s Def Poetry and MTV, as well as crowds who have witnessed the collective share the stage with the likes of Common, Mos Def, KRS-One, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

iLL-Literacy’s hot, and only getting hotter. ‘Nuff said.

ASC Date Auction

2008-10-25T14:40:00.000-07:00

Sorry I neglected this blog during the Date Auction planning process this year...I'm going to try to make up for it now so that ASC can have a better reference in the future :]

The ASC Date Auction is our biggest fundraiser for the entire school year. It's actually our only fundraiser that we have. Most of the money goes to fund our annual winter formal, but we also give a certain percentage of the profits to a charity. Traditionally every organization would provide a few members for auction. It isn't exclusive to just members of ASC organizations -- people that aren't part of ASC can also sign up to get auctioned off. Most people do a short talent and then get auctioned off afterwards.

This year, AAMC approached us and asked if they could co-sponsor with us. Usually AAMC has their own date auction, but unfortunately this year their date auction landed during homecoming weekend. Honestly, October is quite a disaster month to be planning events - you have fall break, Green & Gold, Homecoming weekend and Halloween weekend. Our own date auction was on a Sunday evening which isn't really the ideal time for any event.

Co-sponsoring has it's pros and cons, so it was something to think over before rushing into any decisions... (Pros: Draw more people to the event, appeal to different audience, share responsibilities. Cons: Split profits, how to split the work up evenly, communications). At the end, we decided that we will split the money according to the respective members/representative that get auctioned off from each organization.

One of our main challenges was getting solicitations for the date packages this year. Well, I think it has always been a challenge in the past. It's no easy task to ask businesses to donate something. You don't always get to speak to the manager or to the person that is in charge of donations. Even if you leave the letters to give to the manager, they don't always end up where they should. Often the letters are forgotten and disregarded - because lets be honest, a charity date auction isn't the first thing on a manager's list of things-to-do. Basically, in the future, it would be better if the exec board start solicitating possibly in the start of the year...like August, so that you have time to return to all the businesses and remind them/make sure that the letter has been received by the right person. Mostly likely you would have to go back a second, third time. Also, we aimed at high-classed restaurants this year because in the previous year, we thought the date packages weren't really 'quality' dates. However, we also limited ourselves by going to higher-classed restaurants. So basically...need to find a good balance. We had to do a lot of impromptu date packages at the end, and we had to spend some of the money, but it turned out ok at the end I think.

The set up of the date auction turned out pretty well. A lot of people thought having the tables was a lot more intimate and not as awkward with rows of chairs, which was also a bonus. We intentionally set up the tables because we decided to have finger foods and drinks this year.

Overall, the date auction seemed to turn out ok, which is a huge relief for me. We ended up making $1500, 500 more than our target $1000. Even after we split the profits up with AAMC, we had around 1200 left over for ASC. We also donated 10% of the profits ($150) to the Karen G Komen Breast Cancer, which was fantastic :]

Thanks to Tyler Hudgins, who is kinda amazing and decided to cosponsor with us this year. I'm sure he's glad he doesn't get 10 emails from me per day.
Obviously, everyone on the exec board...Se won, who's always got my back. Mike who was AMAZING and worked totally hard to get all the auctionee information and music and all that stuff, together. Ben and Eddy wrapping everything else and moral support.
Our MCs Tymon Francis and Koji Ukai
All our auctionees cause it takes a lot of balls to get up there and get auctioned off

Ok. That is all from me.

Til next time-

ASC Forum / phpBB

2008-10-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

I set up the forums, and it's linked on the website now. It's at the bottom right hand corner, and located on the web at http://hostedboard.com/?mforum=asianstudentcou

It would be a decent place to discuss things without having to actually meet ... just a suggestion. It's available to all to use, and if you want something from it, such as another board to write on or whatever, then just email me.

so/AsianStudentCouncil

2008-09-16T11:41:00.000-07:00

The ASC site is a bit functional...

It's been online for a while, actually, I just haven't had too much time to update it. I still have a bit on my to do list, including a lot of the multimedia content and scheduling information. After that is cleaning up a lot of the format, but otherwise it's a pretty good indicator of its future direction.

My intention is that your presidents and secretaries can more directly inform you of the going-ons of ASC, so having it pull directly from this blogspot makes it easy for them to offer you content.

I hope you like it, and if you don't I offered a link to Mark's old site on the home page.

Visit it at http://www.wm.edu/so/asianstudentcouncil

ASC Welcome Back BBQ + Field Day = ASC Tailgate!

2008-09-16T06:58:00.000-07:00

After all the meticulous planning for the ASC BBQ throughout the summer and through the start of the semester - it was sad to see it go down the drain (well, not all of it) due to the ferocious "hurricane" Hannah. That hurricane was a total joke but it did leave the grounds sufficiently wet and I'm sure no one would have wanted to sit/play on wet grass.

So after very last minute planning, ASC BBQ was transformed into ASC Tailgate. Personally, I did not expect to have such a good turn out for such a last minute planned event and lack of publicity (moral of the story..? jk....) But in the end I think around 70 people showed up! A lot of familar faces and also quite a few new people as well, which was fantastic. Most of the food was gone by 5:30 and overall, I think everyone had a relatively good time, so thanks everyone for showing up! Special shoutout to everyone that came to help out :]

Some things to watch out for next year:
- Book a rain location
- Buy more drinks, cookies and chips

Right now the ASC Exec Board have started the outline of our annual Date Auction. It's our biggest fundraiser (our only one actually) for the whole academic year. Most of the proceeds will be used to hold the Winter Formal, which is going to be at the end of November. 10% of the money will raise will go to charity.

More to come on the Date Auction!

9/1/08 Minutes!

2008-09-02T15:29:00.000-07:00

Whatsup everyone. This post is just announcing the minutes and informing those who weren't there with us about what happened and what we talked about. Here it goes.

Welcome to the First ASC Meeting of the Year 2008-2009!
Fellow ASC heads and organization leaders introduced themselves, as well as the new faces such as the freshmen and transfers. I believe it could have been a record turnout for ASC.

We then presented the ASC mission statement, which can also be found in the ASC website - http://web.wm.edu/so/asianstudentcouncil/about/index.html -

First topic: ASC BBQ + Field Day
Date:Saturday, September 6, 2008
Time:1:00pm - 5:00pm
Location:Yates Field

We asked all of the organizations within ASC to donate $20 for the event. Previously, the organizations helped us out by bringing dishes, but we believed that a simple donation would be ultimately cheaper and more efficient.

Grilling time starts at 12 and lasts until 2:30. there were 10 spots for 5 shifts at the grill, and were all filled up within about 7 minutes! talk about dedication.
here are the shifts:

12:00 - 12:45 Juae, Thuy, Mike
12:30 - 1:15 Ray, Preston
1:00 - 1:45 Sam Davis, Mike
1:30 - 2:15 Steven, Amanda
2:00 - 2:45 Uriah, Soojin

Setup Crews/Cleanup Crews
ASC Exec Board, Sonam, Usmaan, Agatha, Kevin, Kang, Justin, Bryan Neva, Esther, Kristen, Adam Wong.
*Also, people are always welcome to help out either for setup or cleanup. Besides, what can be more fun?

There will be an activities meeting for several people to manage the activities and decide what is best for everybody and what will provide the most fun. If anyone is interested, please email bjyoo@wm.edu (Ben Yoo) and he will definitely get everyone together for brainstorming and also putting things down on paper.

NEXT TOPIC
The Persian Student Organization has requested becoming part of ASC. We presented the idea to the other organizations, and have given them until next meeting to vote on the inclusion of PSO into ASC. ASC Orgs, please have your answer by the next meeting. PSO will be present in the next meeting to introduce themselves as well.

Third Topic
Other Upcoming Activities:
Date Auction – Oct. 19
iLL-literacy – Nov. 1
Winter Formal – Nov. 22

Last Topic:
We have moved the meeting time for ASC to 7pm in Washington 305. ASC will meet bi-monthly, with reminder emails prior to each meeting.

That's it. Hope everyone enjoyed the meeting, and for those who couldn't come, we hope to see you next time. Till then, enjoy the school year! :)

ASC

ASC Welcome Back BBQ/Field Day and...

2008-06-25T20:05:00.000-07:00

HI EVERYONE!
HOPEFULLY EVERYONE IS HAVING A KICKASS SUMMER SO FAR & KEEPING COOL, CAUSE IT IS HAWT!

yeah, i just spelt hot, hawt..

Anyways, your amazing ASC exec board have already started planning for the amazing events next semester. We thought it would be nice to move the planning to the blog for more discussion; totally opened for suggestions, criticism, random comments whatever. It is probably easier for the exec board to carry discussions here instead of getting 10 page emails.

First event of the year is the ASC Welcome Back BBQ + Field Day...(and potential after party cough). It will be held on Saturday Sept. 6, 12-6 PM @ Yates Field.

This is a bit of a summary from the first email I sent out, merged with the comments I got back:

People: I think we have all to a agreement that we are going to try to make this as BIG as possible. It should be a great opportunity for everyone to get together and just chillax, talk about summer flings whatever. One of the major problems we are running into is estimating how many people we anticipate to come. TJ said around 60 people showed up last year (coming and going, not all at once). I want to aim for 100 people but I am not sure if this is a over-estimate or what. So if anyone else has a good...grasps of how many people would show up, that would be great. Also, since we are obviously going to try and target the freshmen class, we need the freshmen to actually come out. Did any of you guys go to any ASC events as freshmen? Cause I didn't...
Ben Yoo came up with a pretty sweet idea for freshmen - we can have sort of a buddy system going on, assigning a active ASC member (or whoever wants a freshmen i guess) to a freshmen (that they can facebook stalk/already know) and drag them along to the event. We all know how shy they are, so this is just so that they feel a big more comfortable going to a random BBQ.

FOOD: The usual list of Burgers (with Buns), Hot dogs (with Buns), Salad/Coleslaw, Potato Chips/Other junk food and of course having vegetarian burgers and hot dogs. If there's something else people want, please drop a note or something. (I just thought of cookies. we all like cookies right?)
In the past, every organization has contribute with a type of food. I want to continue with this tradition and I don't think it should be too expensive. However, Ben mentioned that because the BBQ will be a bigger event than previous years, each organization might not have money to contribute, because it isn't in their planned budget. I think most organizations should have spare money though, because we all know student organizations can't really depend only on the money the school gives. Once we have a estimate of how many people, we can have a better estimate with how much the food is going to cost. I don't think each organization will have to pay too much for food, but we can set a budget and if it goes over that budget, ASC can probably reimburse. I think that sounds fair?

Grill Team/Clean-up Team/Staff: We don't want one person to do all the dirty work, so we'll try to get people to sign up for one or the other in advance. There's only 5 exec members and we are going to need help with this.

Field Day: We have a whole field, so this can be opened up to suggestions. Mike & Ben are going to plan the activities for the field day, but obviously it should be something most people want to participate. Can be a tournament whatever. Preferably the activity would not need too much equipment.

After party: I think most of us want a after party, different atmosphere, freshmen will probably be interested. If enough people are interested, ASC will try their best to make a after party happen. Biggest concern - venue. Where can we hold such after party? Is there anyone willing to host a after party? We can always try to book tazewell but from previous experiences, that hasn't always turned out that well because the space is too big and it feels empty and people are awkward. And if its off campus, we will need drivers. Once we figure out a venue, we can figure out about...other finer details.

SUGGESTIONS/COMMENTS PLEASE! The more feedback we get, the better event we can plan!

I hope everyone is excited, cause ASC is coming back with a bang. get stoked people.

E-Board Participation Check

2008-06-25T04:00:00.000-07:00

This post is to check if everybody on the e-board got ben yoo's email suggesting meetings through blogger. If you got the email and are up for doing this, please comment saying so. i.e. "aye", "check", "yes", "here", "present", "wtf", etc.

if there are significant number of people participating, we'll proceed with actual meeting discussions :)

Deadline: July 2nd (1 week)

ASC Office Spring Cleaning 08'

2008-04-21T21:21:00.000-07:00

Today was the first spring cleaning of the ASC Office since...who knows? It must have been a long time because that place is just screaming for some organization (ahaha...). Funny thing is, I am not a psycho-anal, organizational neak-freak but stepping inside that office gave me migraines every time...possibly from all the dust and scary disease's cooking in there. So I was so looking forward to this cleanup meeting for realzz.

We purposely scheduled the clean-up during the normal meeting time so that no one can really make a excuse not to be there. I have no idea why I thought we can organize that office in a hour, there was so much shit to toss out. The amount of eating utensils/plates/napkins etc that have built up over the years was OVERWHELMING. We probably have enough to last all 6 organizations for 3 years or something. No jokes. The grossest stuff we found had to be that Gatorade bottle still have full with mold, the bag of rice that had to be like 10 years old and lots of expired snacks...mmmm

I haven't figured out what is the best way to organize things on such a large scale. It's hard when people leave every year and the transitions are done in such a hurry. Things get lost in translation and basically the piles and piles of stuff in the office seems to be all the result of it. It was great seeing pictures, programs of the events clubs have held in the past...like a bizarre time machine sucking you in. I found pamphlets of ASC when it was actually called Asian Student Union where they had all these different clubs (for example VSA wasn't formed yet) which was just weird to think of.

One day maybe the office could actually be turned into a office instead of a storage space, something Ben Yoo really wants to do. Right now it looks a bit difficult, but maybe one day...

I guess it is a bit of the Asian influence within me...cleaning to greet the new year and hoping for a better start. Fingers crossed.

Updates on the APAS Program

2008-04-18T14:28:00.000-07:00

I have great news for everybody in terms of the progress with the Asian Pacific American Studies program initiative.

Professors Leisa Meyers, Jacqui McLendon, Rani Mullen, and Hiroshi Kitamura have all agreed to be on the Faculty Group for APA Studies. We have enough faculty to get started!! Professor Francis Tanglao-Aguas is sending the May seminar proposal so this idea is moving at a lightning quick pace.

I am incredibly excited for things to come in the future...

Asian Pacific American Studies Forum etc

2008-04-17T18:28:00.000-07:00

Yay!!! ASC finally launched their first blog in WM history (and we all know how long that is) today! How totally exciting :]

Props for Andrew Chan giving me the idea when he started the CSO blog on xanga. I think Bryan Neva also had the idea but I guess we beat him to it-

This place functions primarily as a electronic document/record for ASC, but it also serves as a forum, a place for discussions, comments and feedback. Basically, it can be whatever we want and what we want to make of it. Heck, who knows what's going to happen to this site, whether we all actually make an effort to maintain it and whether this idea is actually cool. Even if no one reads this, it'll hopefully be a great way to document the progress of ASC. So here we go...

Today we had our first Asian Pacific American Studies forum (Tyler 102, 5-7 PM). Technically, it was not hosted by us but something that was first initiated by Eddy Hong and Stacey McDermott.

Basically, we want to see if it was possible to begin an APAS program here at William & Mary - whether or not there was a interest and more importantly, a demand. Apparently alumni from the past have thought of the idea to start a APAS program but it never got carried out. It was not well documented; could have been transitional problems, lack of interest, support funds etc. It would have been good to see why it never worked out so that we can make sure it worked out this time.

Not too many people came out, but thats ok, we weren't really expecting too many people. Around 4 professors came out, along side a handful of students. Eddy and Stacey along with Professor Francis Tanglao Aguas lead most of the discussion. We touched on some very important issues, mostly funding and logistical problems we might be running into, faculty support and what kind of classes we have now that could be used to start a APAS program.

What I thought was most relevant to us, as students is how much interest and support we have towards building a APAS program. Essentially, this is something that is very relevant to us because without our support, there would be no point in a APAS program. More importantly, once we show our support and start filling those classes, how to maintain this interest so that the program can survive in the future. So that people will want major in APAS from WM. Thinks like that-

There's so many things I didn't touch on but there is so many things to think about. This is a pretty big project and more long-term than short (even though there are short term plans) but today's discussion was very informative and it gave me a better 'structure' in my mind of how I think about the APAS, what is going on and what are professors, administrators and students alike are doing to make this work.

What do you guys think?

Contributing is fun

2008-04-17T17:53:00.001-07:00

Everyone should do it

2008-04-17T17:01:00.001-07:00

Testing~