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

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

Co-chairpersons: Agatha Kang & Kristian Obcemane

Treasurer: Jade Park

ASC Open Forum

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

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

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:
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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

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

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 --