Summer 2018
Members of the Movement coordinate with over forty other colleges and universities to build the first National Coalition for Asian American Pacific Islander Studies (NCAAPIS) for an estimated launch in September/October. Members of the Movement also conduct archival research, outreach to media organizations, alumni relations, and more.
July 12, 2018
Featured Story with The World, The Takeaway, & WGBH Radio!
Check out our latest story on Asian American Studies around the East Coast!
The Takeaway: https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/student-activists-push-asian-american-studies-program/
July 16, 2018
Members of the Movement send the following note to President Mandel, Provost Love, Dean Buell, members of the CPC, and members of the CEA. In this note, the Asian American Studies Committee highlights:
- that Amherst College has given public commitment towards the establishment of an Asian American Studies program by 2023, if not sooner.
- that the CPC has promised the addition of at least 2 student members to the CPC's AAS working group, barring confidential meetings.
- that last spring, our request for enrollment data from the IR office was pushed off by the CPC, and that the movement firmly requests that the request for enrollment data be fulfilled swiftly so that the IR office has a month to process any request for data
July 16, 2018
Professor Nugent, chair of the CPC for the 2018-2019 school year, sends the following response.
July 17, 2018
President Mandel sends the following response to the movement's note.
August 15, 2018
Amherst College issues a public commitment to AAS student organizers for the establishment of an Asian American Studies program by 2023! Congratulations! Thank you for taking the step in the right direction; we hope that Williams College will do the same by the end of this year.
March 8, 2019
AAS organizers put together another iteration of the “Williams Doesn’t Teach Me” photo campaign.
April 30, 2019
For your perusal, we put together a directory to the Williams Record coverage of the movement for Asian American Studies this school year.
News
Trustees hold forum featuring Asian American studies debate (10/17/18)
CC approves resolution in support of Asian American studies (10/31/18)
CPC working group declares immediate need for two hires for Asian American studies program (2/13/19)
Asian American studies staffing requests submitted by religion, American studies (3/6/19)
Asian American studies movement rekindles “Williams Doesn’t Teach Me” campaign (3/13/19)
Editorials
Op-Eds
May 9, 2019
Dean Buell emails members of the CPC working group in Asian American Studies with the results of the CAP’s deliberations on the tenure-line requests for faculty in Asian American Studies.
The CAP approves two tenure-track Asian Americanist hires, one in American Studies and one in Religion. One faculty search for a senior scholar to be appointed in American Studies will be conducted in the 2019-2020 academic year, and the second search will be conducted in the 2020-2021 academic year, “open-rank but likely with preference for an early-career scholar” in Religion.
The hiring of these two faculty specializing in Asian American Studies will play a critical role in finally establishing an Asian American Studies program at Williams. As for immediate next steps, we are envisioning student involvement in the hiring process, the formation of a program headed by a Committee of Educational Affairs (CEA) Working Group on Asian American Studies once the two faculty hires arrive, and then a hire exclusively in Asian American Studies, unlike the joint hires in Religion and American Studies.
This opens up a new chapter of the thirty-year-old Asian American Studies Movement at Williams; while we are excited for the faculty searches, these lines do not equate to a program. There is much more work still left to be done. We will continue to hold the administration accountable and make sure this necessary first step towards a program leads to its fruition.
