Asian and Asian American Studies Program at Cal State, Los Angeles

An interesting piece of news crossed my path today. Apparently, the administration at California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA) was making the consideration in January of this year to do away with their Asian and Asian American Studies program due to low enrollment rates. 

According to a spokesman for the university, “There has been some discussion regarding the current state of the program. This discussion is based on the results of [the department's] self-study for its Program Review. The self-study showed that there had been only six graduates and two minors in this degree over the past five years…The next step in the process will be providing input to [Dean James Henderson, College of Natural and Social Sciences] and gathering input from the appropriate program reviewers and [the department]. From there, Academic Affairs will decide whether or not to suspend the program.”

The CSULA campus is located at the gateway to San Gabriel Valley, which houses one of the nation's largest Chinese community. CSULA itself is made up of 20-30% of Asian American students.The program has been operating since 2005 and has suffered from what Dr. Enrique de la Cruz, a professor at CSU, Northridge, calls fiscal neglect despite various funding sources and donors. An online campaign was launched to fight the suspension and various protest acts (marches, petitions, blogs, letters of support, etc.) were set in motion.

Finally, in June of 2011,  the former director of the program (who was a professor in anthropology!) wrote a thank you letter to summarize the support the program received and the current state of affairs. A new director of the program was appointed to the program in April of 2011 and has subsequently received full reassigned time on par with other department chairs, an implicit recognition of the lack of university support to the previous director.

So there you have it. Social action works. This gives us all good reason to stand up for what we believe, to articulate our beliefs in infectious words and action, and to inspire the same enthusiasm in others.

Taiwan Psychology Network

The Taiwan Psychology Network (TPN) is a network of Taiwanese psychologists, mental health professionals and graduate students in psychology in the United States and Taiwan. Initiated by Dr. Gisela Lin, the President of the Asian American Psychological Association (2001-2003) and a psychologist at the Texas A & M University Student Counseling Services, TPN aims to promote collaboration and networking among psychologists in Taiwan and U.S. and to contribute to the training and education of Taiwanese/Taiwanese American mental health professional. 

For those of you who will be attending APA's annual conference in August, TPN will be having social events and meet-ups during the conference period to help anyone interested build their network!

APA Division 45 Conference

Division 45 of the APA (Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues) had their first-ever conference separate from the APA convention during the summer of last year (June 17-19, 2010).  The conference will be hosted by the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and it provided a forum for presenting psychological research on ethnic minority groups within the US and for encouraging greater networking and collaboration across various fields of psychology. 

There were over 130 poster presentations, more than 35 symposiums, panel discussions, and workshops, as well as plenary sessions on racism, racial/ethnic identity, and culture and mental health.  The conference program provides an overview of the event.  While another Division 45 conference does not seem to be in the works for 2011, it may be of value to expand this event into an annual presence in the future. What do you think?