Chicago Flame: March 12, 2002

Provost Approves Asian-American Cultural Center Director Search to Begin After Hiring Freeze Melts

By Ignacio Lopez

Rena Patel, Wen Chen and Catherine Kuo of the Asian American Coalition Committee discuss plans for the proposed Asian-American cultural center. Interim Provost Charlotte Tate last week committed to hiring a director for the center once the recently instated university-wide hiring freeze is lifted.

A two-year movement to establish an Asian-American resource and cultural center at the University of Illinois at Chicago has culminated with Interim Provost Charlotte Tate approving the center and committing to a search for a director when the university's hiring freeze is lifted, Asian American Coalition Committee members said Wednesday.

According to a statement released last week by the committee, Tate said she will begin putting together "a hiring package" and start the search process when the hiring freeze, a result of statewide budget cuts, is lifted.

Tate, who has been working with committee members to get center up and running, will step down July 1 from her position. She will be replaced by Michael Tanner, a former vice chancellor at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Some committee members see Tate's departure as a cause for concern. They said earlier efforts to establish a center, which began three years ago, were unsuccessful because of a similar situation. Former Interim Provost Elizabeth Hoffman also was to approve the center, the students said, but her departure caused them to restart their efforts from scratch.

Committee Treasurer Wen Chen believes things will be different this time around, that Tate's departure will cause no interruptions in plans for the center.

"She is stepping down from her position, but at least she'll still be on campus," Chen said.

Tate will continue her post as the dean of Applied Health Sciences, a position she has held for two years.

Students say the center will offer a political- and educational-oriented resources to Asian-American students on campus.

"The (center) will be more politically driven," group Secretary Catherine Kuo said. "We want (it) to bring on more issues than any other student organization's."

Though students expressed excitement about the provost's approval of the center proposal, they noted issues yet to be resolved include hiring a director and establishing a location.

In earlier discussions this year with Tate, committee members said they want the director of the center to be a tenured faculty member. Tate has decided a nontenured faculty member can effectively run the center, the students said last week.

That decision has struck a sour note with some.

"We feel that a tenured faculty member will make a better commitment to the resource center," Kuo said. "A staff member will probably be too busy with other involvements."

One of the last issues facing the new center is location. Students said there is no marked space, but the provost has formed a space allocation committee that will help find the center a home on campus.

"In a year from now we hope to be somewhere on campus," Kuo said. "We just want equal amount of space that other student organizations have on campus."