Chicago Flame: March 4, 2004

Asian Americans to secure cultural center, director

By David Um

One of the strongest selling points at University of Illinois at Chicago has always been the culturally diverse student body in an equally diverse city, a much-touted fact when compared with other colleges and universities in the area.

UIC's undergraduate enrollment of 16,542 in the Fall of 2002 included nine percent African-American students, 16 percent Hispanic and 24.1 percent Asian/Pacific Islander students.

To provide support networks and advising resources for minority populations, many of these groups have pushed for cultural centers and the school has answered their requests, including the African-American Academic Network (AAAN), Latin American Recruitment and Educations Services (LARES), Native American Support Program, Office of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, & Transgender Concerns (OGLBTC) and the Office of Women's Affairs.

However, UIC's largest minority group, Asian Americans, are seeing the fruits of the labor done by a campus awareness movement that began over ten years ago.

The Asian-American Coalition Committee (AACC) has been quietly setting goals and knocking them off one by one since its inception in 2001. AACC acts as an umbrella organization for all Asian-American student organizations on campus.

With leaders and members drawn from myriad groups and clubs, AACC has been making progress on two of its most pressing issues: establishing an Asian-American Studies program and securing space for a cultural center.

With the submission of a detailed business proposal in November 2001, plans for an Asian-American Resource and Cultural Center (AARCC) began to materialize.

However, an ensuing budget crisis and parade of chancellors and provosts pushed the center to the back burner.

Current AACC Chair, Sae-Rom Chae, expressed a mixture of frustration and hopefulness with the situation.

"The budget problem delayed the approval of the proposal a bit. Even though the administration said they were still evaluating, there was always that uncertainty."

Chae and other AACC board members began having serious conversations with Executive Vice Provost Dr. Clark Hulse and Provost R. Michael Tanner last fall.

"We knew things were really starting to move when we met with Dr. Hulse and Tanner," Chae said.

Funds have been set aside for the cultural center itself now, though no location on campus has been chosen.

However, now the progress of the center hinges upon the hiring of a non-faculty director to head it.

"As of right now, our top priority is to finish the selection process for the future director of the AARCC," Chae said.

Chae is the sole student on the selection committee and feels a responsibility to represent the student population-at-large. In addition to the formal interviewing process, the candidates will have to present themselves to the student population in an open forum sometime this semester.

"Even though the finalist interviews are for committee members only, I was very pleased that students would be able to offer their input in such a direct way," Chae said.

Some may hear about the money going toward the AARCC and ask, "Why don't they use that money to make more sections of my psych class?"

"Yes, this is a sensitive time regarding money. But people have to take into account that this is the culmination of a ten-year struggle where we've just started to see concrete results in the last 2-3 years," Chae said.

Chae thinks Asian culture, language and history classes are weakly represented in UIC's curriculum offerings.

"Even though Asians are the largest minority at UIC, there's no denying the fact that we are still a minority.

"Being an `invisible minority' is especially bad for one so large," she said.

AACC and other Asian-American organizations are in the process of gearing up for Asian-American Awareness Month, which takes place in April.

Staff writer David Um can be reached at dum@chicagoflame.com.