Penn State Students:
I Want My AA Studies!
Penn State students recently circulated a petition to pressure university officials for a permanent AA studies couse.
While Asian American Studies programs have been a mainstay in many public universities for nearly 40 years, Penn State University only has one course titled, “Introduction to Asian American Studies,” which was launched this year without any guarantee of continuing.
The course is “experimental” and has three chances to prove itself in order to be granted permanent status. But after two semesters, university officials decided not to offer the course until Spring 2007 prompting student protests and petition drives to bring it back this fall. Clearly, Penn State students want their AA Studies.
And they got what they wanted — Sociology 197A — a class two days a week that examines AA history, dissects the roots of stereotyping and the pan-Asian effects of racism. Since its introduction, the classroom has been filled to capacity.
But the course’s future is still in question, said Bao Ming Li, the course instructor who was told by university administrators that AA classes have never enjoyed any success at Penn State.
But every week, Li faces a sea of young eyes eager to drink in parts of U.S. history that was not included in their high school curriculums. One student recently cried over her own lack of knowledge, Li said.
“Every year is like a relay for the students,” said Li about the students’ struggle for AA Studies.
The APA Caucus, a university student organization, has been leading the campaign to pressure school officials to permanently adopt the introductory AA Studies course and to expand AA Studies into a major program.
“People argue that racism is due to ignorance. Well then, commit resources to combat institutionalized racism,” said Toni Dang, a junior at Penn State majoring in African American Studies.
Since she entered Penn State, Dang has constantly heard whispers about racial bias and prejudice from minority students.
During her freshman year, one of Dang’s AA classmates found feces smeared across his dorm room door and last spring, two friends reported to school officials that the slur “nigger” was written on their walls, but it was just painted over without much fanfare.
“I think it’s symbolic … putting paint over it to whitewash the incident,” she said. “These things happen every year. Penn State needs to step up its anti-racism agenda.”
An AA Studies program is a crucial step in combating racism, added Dang.
According to the university, AA enrollment has increased four percent since last year. In the College of Liberal Arts, where the introductory AA course is currently based, students can major in African American, Latin American and Jewish Studies.
The glaring lack of any AA Studies class prompted Camilla Chung to launch a two-year campaign to ask the university for one class. She organized a petition drive and pressed university officials until she was told that if she could find enough students to take the class and someone to teach it, then she would get her AA Studies class.
“I almost gave them what they wanted at that moment: to just throw in the towel,” said Chung.
In her continued fight, she found Li, who was already employed by Penn State as an academic coordinator. Li had taught in China and Georgia for 13 years, but was basically self-taught in AA Studies. Last semester, Li received the highest class evaluation score in the department.
Some are accusing university officials of trying to set up Li’s AA class for failure.
The class was added to the course catalog very late in the semester and only after students protested in April, but it was initially listed without any course credit even though it satisfied general education requirements. When it finally appeared in the course catalog, the class was listed as counting towards international culture and U.S. culture requirements, said Dang.
A Penn State representative confirmed that the introductory AA Studies class would continue to be offered as long as there is a demand and the faculty to teach it.
“In recent years, there has been some demand for Asian American courses, a demand we are trying to meet,” said Vicki Fong, Penn State assistant director of science/research communications. “However, with 1,500 more freshmen than last year, and with overall enrollments at an all time high at Penn State, we have a lot of other curricular demands that we are trying to meet with limited resources.
“The college of the liberal arts administrators are interested in moving forward to create an Asian American minor; the challenge, however, is to find faculty who are interested in developing courses beyond Sociology 197A, and this is something they are exploring this year,” said Fong.
Some APAs leaders think Penn State should take stronger actions to pave the way for AA Studies.
“I would hope that Penn State would look around the nation and see the increase in the numbers of Asian American studies programs over the past five years,” said Rajini Srikanth, president of the Association for Asian American Studies.
Srikanth argues that AA Studies promotes any student’s intellectual experience.
“For instance, imagine the kind of complex historical understanding and sophisticated analytical thinking that could develop when students learn about the Japanese American internment and position that historical moment against the erosion of civil liberties today,” she said.
Student leaders like Dang can’t help but look at the neighboring University of Pennsylvania and Temple University, where AA Studies programs have been a part of a longstanding tradition.
“We’re really behind the times,” said Dang.
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