ASA Weekly Digest 12.4.06

Dear ASA,

We are starting an ASA BookClub to begin discussing issues concerning Asian Americans in the U.S. If youwould like a free book over winter break and participate in honest, stimulatingdiscussions with other Duke students who have read the same book, please emailPriscilla Baek at epb3@duke.edu by midnight tonight!We will be ordering the books tomorrow afternoon to ensure delivery beforewinter break. If you read this digest on Tuesday, then you go ahead andrespond, but we can’t guarantee you a spot.

Enjoy your last week ofclasses and good luck studying for exams!

Priscilla Baek

Exec VP of ASA

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ASA Book Club: Freebook over winter break! Asian American Dreams

Whatdoes it mean to be Asian American? How do our social, academic and familialexperiences shape our identities? How do we begin to articulate our rich,complex and often forgotten history?  

Ifyou want to explore any of these questions and more within a community of Duke students, join our book club and get a free book over winterbreak! Members must agree to participate in at least one book discussion duringthe Spring 2007 semester. We are also inviting theauthors/editors of the book next semester for possibility of an interestingdialogue.

Weare also choosing among two books. The final decision will be a democraticvote. Please send your vote to Priscilla Baek at epb3@duke.eduwith subject line: ASA Book Club by midnight, Monday Dec. 4 to ensure your copybefore winter break!

1.AsianAmerican Dreams by award-winning journalist, Helen Zia

2.AsianAmerican X by a group of college and college-aged Asian Americans

(Clickon the links to see Amazon’s description of these books)

Deadline: TONIGHT @Midnight. Tell all your friends!  Email: epb3@duke.edu

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HOUSECS 79.09 — Lostin Translation:  Asians in America

Are you pre-med?  Oh,maybe an engineer?  Twinkie/Coconut.  Youact too black.  Oh, you’re one of the cool Asians.  Are your eyesopen?  Do your parents run a convenience store?  I know [Asian-soundingname], do you know him/her?  Where are you from?  I mean where areyour parents from?  You Asians, you all look the same anyway.

Asian/Pacific Islander is thefastest growing racial minority group in the United States.  According toDuke University Undergraduate Admissions, 25.4% of the Class of 2010 isclassified as Asian, Asian-American or Pacific Islander.  By US standards, aboutone-third of the world population classifies as “Asian”.  There have beenseveral waves of Asian immigration in the United States, introducinggenerations of vastly different identities into, and thus constantly reshaping,the Asian Diaspora.  It is a population with conflicts from the outsideand within.  Many have one foot in the United States and another half-wayacross the world.  In this “multicultural” country of ever increasingdiversity, where do Asians fit in?

In this class we will explorethe Asian identity and its role in the United States.  What does itmean to be Asian/Asian American?  How do we perceive ourselves and how doothers perceive us?  Who is our voice and what should they say? Should there even be a voice?  We will investigate these questions, andmore, using history, popular culture, the media, politics and our ownexperiences to bring light to these issues.  Finally, we will wrap up theclass by bringing it all back home and looking at the Asian presence at Duke.

Instructors (andContact for Permission Numbers in 2nd week of Drop/Add):
Wonjun Lee wjl2@duke.edu
Yibing Li

Eugene Wang

Meeting Time and Place :
Tuesdays 7:00 - 8:30 pm, Keohane 4D 2nd Floor

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INVITATION TO AN INFORMATION SESSION FOR THE MELLON MAYSUNDERGRADUATE FELLOWSHIP

DATE: MONDAY, DECEMBER 4
TIME: 7:00 P.M.
PLACE: MULTICULTURAL CENTER, THE BRYAN CENTER



The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program, now in its 10th year at Duke,is a two- year fellowship program for students who are thinking seriously aboutgetting their PhDs and becoming professors in a wide variety of disciplines.  The program is targeted to underrepresented minority students and otherswith a demonstrated commitment to eradicating racial disparities.


Each year, five sophomore students at Duke are selected as Mellon Mays UndergraduateFellows. They receive stipends for the academic terms and summers for twoyears. During the summers the Fellows, under the direction of a faculty mentor,pursue some form of directed study intended to give them a sense of scholarlyresearch activities.  During the academic year they may: (1) continuetheir independent research; or (2) work as a research assistant on aproject which the faculty mentor is currently pursuing; or (3) work oncurricular or teaching projects of interest to their faculty mentor.

 A student applying to the Program must have a faculty mentor and adefined initial project. Fellows are awarded an annual stipend of $5,100 ($3300for the summer and $900 per semester), a $750 summer housing allowance, and atravel budget  of up to $400.  In addition,each Scholar receives a project supplies budget of $350 per year. Mentorsreceive an annnual award of $750.


For more program details, including the "Mellon disciplines," visit our website: *http://www.aas.duke.edu/trinity/mmuf*


If you think you may be interested in applying for this fellowship program,please plan to come to the informal information session on December 4.

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Presentation on The Evolution of Asian American Businesses on 9^th Street

What: Final Presentation forProfessor Mazumdar’s History 195: Asians in America course.

When: Thursday, Dec 7,3-4:30 pm

Where: Carr

Refreshments will beprovided!

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DUU Major Speakers: Actor, Kal Penn
Monday, December 4, 2006, 4-5:30pm

Kal Penn, best known for playing Kumar in Harold andKumar Go to White Castle
and Taj in the upcoming Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, will be speaking at Page
next Monday.
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JP Morgan Asia Pacific Summer Internship
2007 Summer Analystand Associate Program: Internship Application Deadline December 17th, 2006(Sunday)

JPMorgan Asia Pacific offers exciting, challenging and hands-on summerinternship programs for talented individuals graduating in 2008.  Ourinternships will give you insight to our business, opportunity to work with ourbanker on deals, live the life of a trader, or be a member of the Asia research team!

Our deadlinefor resume submission is December 17th, 2006 (Sunday)

To submit your resume please apply on line via our recruitingwebsite at: http://asiapaccareers.jpmorgan.com/content/content_75.asp
Please clickon “Apply Now” --> US/UK Universities application.

2007 InternshipPrograms:
BachelorsProgram
- InvestmentBanking Summer Analyst
- Sales &Trading Summer Analyst
- ResearchSummer Analyst
- PrivateBanking Summer Analyst

MastersProgram
- InvestmentBanking Summer Associate
- ResearchSummer Associate
- PrivateBanking Summer Associate

Fluency ofan Asian language is preferred.

Forenquiries please send to jpmorgan_asia_recruiting@jpmorgan.com.
Please donot submit resume via this e-mail. You should apply online to ensure that wecapture your details accurately and can get in touch with you.

Bestregards,
AsiaPacific Recruiting Team
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“On Common Ground 2007” @Stanford

It is our great pleasure to invite students fromDuke¹s Asian Student
Association to apply to the "On Common Ground 2007" conferencesorganized by the Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford (FACES), whichwill be held at Stanford University from April 8-14, 2007 and in Beijing or Shanghai
in November 2007.

The Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford (FACES) is a student-ledgroup founded at Stanford University and dedicated to fostering personal
relationships and understanding among future leaders in the United States
and China.FACES strives to promote interest and awareness inU.S.-China
relations and to build the foundation for a more constructive bilateral
future.

For "On Common Ground 2007", we will bring together 40 outstandingstudents
for a seven-day program in April at Stanford and then, in November, at a
university in Beijing or Shanghai. Our delegates will attend speechesand
panels with current and past leaders of both countries from academia,
business, and government. In the past, our delegates have had the privilege
to interact with and hear from former President George H.W. Bush, Sr.,
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, General Brent Scowcroft, Former U.K. Prime
Minister John Major, Former Vice Premier Qian Qichen, former National
Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski,former Secretary of Defense William J.
Perry, U.S.-China Business Council President Robert Kapp,and Ambassador
Michael Armacost.

We are contacting you because we believe that the students in your
organization will be a great addition to our conference and we hope that you
can inform them of the 2007 FACES conferences and encourage them to apply.
FACES will pay half the cost of international air travel, in addition to all
food and accommodation, for all delegates. For more information and
applications, please refer to our website at http://faces.stanford.edu.We
also encourage you to explore the attached FACES flyer and pamphlet. Please
feel free to distribute these materials through whichever means you find
most convenient.

Once again, we thank you for your help in spreading the word about FACES.
Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions or concerns. We look
forward to your students¹ participation in and contributions to "On Common
Ground 2007".

Sincerely,

Drew Camarda, Randy Yang and Wynn Tanner
Directors of Recruiting
Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford
http://faces.stanford.eduor http://www.stanford.edu/group/faces

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The popularity of Chinese studies up in USschools

By Winnie Hu
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, SAN FRANCISCO
Monday, Dec 04, 2006, Page 9

With its booming economy and aspirations toexpand its global influence, Chinamay have achieved a victory in US classrooms.

Take the Chinese-AmericanInternational Schoolin San Francisco,which runs from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade and offers instruction inall subjects -- from math to music -- half in Mandarin and half in English.

The curriculum also includes Chinese history,culture, and language studies, and in the 25 years since the school wasfounded, it has attracted mainly Asian-American children. But in the past fewyears, it has seen rapid growth in the enrollment of non-Asians.

For example, five years ago, the school was 57percent Asian-American, but this year it is only 49 percent Asian-American,said Sharline Chiang, spokeswoman, adding that morenon-Asian-Americans have been applying in recent years.

Andrew Corcoran, the head of the school, saidthat in the last three to four years, applications from white andIndian-American families have more than doubled, though he declined to giveexact figures.

Chiang also said that this was the first yearin which the pre-kindergarten class had more white children, 36 percent, thanAsian-Americans, 32 percent.

School officials attribute the changes largelyto a growing awareness of Chinaas a global economic force, and to a strong sense among parents that learningChinese could help their children professionally.

As Corcoran said, studying Chinese "islooked at as a long-term benefit."

Public schools

For similar reasons, Chinese language classesare increasingly popular across the country in public schools. Shuhan Wang, executive director of the Asia Society'sChinese Language Initiative, who has written about the growth of Chineselanguage studies in the US, said several states -- including Kentucky,Minnesota, Washington, Ohio, Kansas and West Virginia -- were developingcurriculums for public schools.

Even so-called heritage schools, which havehistorically provided immigrant children with Chinese language and cultureinstruction on weekends and after public school, are gaining non-Asianstudents. For example, until three years ago, all but five or six of theroughly 120 students at the Chinese School of Delawarewere Chinese-Americans who spoke Chinese at home, said Tommy Lu, the school'sprincipal.

This year, nearly 30 students are non-Chinese,he said.

At the Lansing Chinese School in Michigan, alsoa heritage school, officials saw a wave of new interest about five years agofrom US couples adopting babies from China, said DennieHoopingarner, the principal, so the school opened apreschool and created a curriculum for children who do not speak Chinese athome. Today, a third of the students, half of them non-Asian, take thoseclasses, he said.

Hoopingarner said some non-Asian children attended theschool because of "an ambitious feeling on the part of the parents" who are "interested in China'splaying an important role in the world."

Parents are also starting new Mandarin programswhen they cannot find them in their communities. Last year, in Livingston, New Jersey, Sharon Huang, a former marketing executive,founded a Mandarin-immersion preschool, Bilingual Buds, for her twin sons, whoare now 3. Huang, whose husband is not Chinese, started the school in her homewith 10 pupils and has since expanded it to 72 pupils and seven teachers in arented space in a church. The school is considering adding a kindergarten classnext fall, she said.

Judith Carlson, 41, a software consultant wholives in Verona, New Jersey, pays about US$400 a month tosend Victoria, her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, to Bilingual Buds.Carlson's older children, Ryan, 15, and Sarah, 13, have been studying Mandarinat their public school since first grade. The children are now teaching theirparents to count to 10 and speak basic words in Mandarin.

"It's going to be a big advantage forthem," Carlson said. "I think no matter what you do in life, if youhave some kind of specialty that sets you apart from other people, that makesyou more marketable."

Mandarin

When Mandarin was first offered in Chicago public schools in 1999, about 250 studentsenrolled, Bob Davis, director of the Chicagoschool system's Chinese Connections Program, said. Today, nearly 6,000 publicschool students, out of roughly 421,000, study Mandarin, he said, the majorityblack or Hispanic.

"I get calls every day from parents askinghow they can get their students in the program, or how their local schools canoffer such a program," Davissaid, pointing out that "the bulk of our students have no background orexposure to Chinese language and culture."

In Connecticut this year, about 3,000 students,most non-Asian, are studying Mandarin in about 16 public schools, said Mary AnnHansen of the state's Department of Education, a 10-fold increase from 300students in 2004. Another half-dozen schools are considering offering Mandarinfor the first time next fall, she said.

About half the teachers for the program comethrough a partnership with the Chinese government, Hansen added. Their salariesare paid by their own government, but the districts cover living expenses.

"We don't have enough Chinese teacherslocally," she said.

Michael Patterson, a high school chemistryteacher, has four children -- ages 6 to 13 -- at the Chinese-American schoolhere.

He said the academic program attracted him, buthe also noted that "people say Chinese is going to be a pay-off."

Still, having children at this kind of schoolcan be a challenge.

"We can't help with homework,"Patterson said.

Chiang, the school's spokeswoman, said parentslike Patterson gamely participated in celebrations like the Mandarin speechfestival, public speaking contests in which students read in Mandarin.

"The parents sit and patientlylisten," she said, "supporting their children even though they don'tunderstand a word."

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Storm,mudslides kill 198 in Philippines

ByBULLIT MARQUEZ, Associated Press Writer

Fri Dec 1, 3:29 PM ET  Yahoo News

The ash and boulders had been building upsince an eruption in July, high on the slopes of the Mayonvolcano. Typhoon Durian's blasts of wind and drenching rain raked it all downin a deadly black wall of debris.

For nearly three hours Thursday afternoon,mudslides ripped through Mayon's gullies, uprootingtrees, flattening houses and engulfing people. Entire hamlets were swamped in Mayon, on northern Luzon island.

Some 198 people were killed — most inmudslides on Mayon — and 260 were missing, the nationalOffice of Civil Defense reported. Another 130 were injured.

With power and phone lines down, it tookuntil Friday morning, when the first flights managed to survey the area, forthe scope of the devastation to emerge.

"The disaster covered almost everycorner of this province — rampaging floods, falling trees, damagedhouses," said Fernando Gonzalez, governor of Albayprovince, the site of all but a few of the deaths.

Pope Benedict XVI, saddened by the"tragic loss of life," was praying for the victims, rescue workersand others providing assistance, the Vatican said.

"Our rescue teams are overstretchedrescuing people on rooftops," said Glen Rabonza,the Civil Defense head, after officials briefed President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on the disaster and the difficulties ofgetting to survivors stranded by seas of black mud.

Bodies were wrapped in blankets and slung onbamboo poles to be carried to trucks, then covered with coconut leaves andtransferred to makeshift morgues.

"It's terrible. We now call this placea black desert," Noel Rosal, mayor of Legazpi city, Albay province'scapital, said after visiting one stricken village.

Rosal said three of the five communities comprising thevillage of 1,400 people had been "wiped out" with only the roofs ofseveral houses jutting out of the debris. He said people claimed some of theboulders were as big as cars and red hot, suggesting fresh lava from 8,077-footMayon.

His own residence was under water that rose"higher than a person" in a flash flood.

"I was almost a goner. I had toswim," Rosal said.

Mayon, a popular tourist attraction because of its nearlyperfect conical shape, is one of the Philippines' 22 active volcanos. It erupted in July, depositing millions of tonsof rocks and volcanic ash on its slopes, and has continued to rumble sincethen. Rains from succeeding typhoons may have loosened the materials.

Villagers have lived with the threat of a Mayon eruption — the most violent one killed more than1,200 people in 1814 — but say they never heard of debris being washed so fardown or so violently.

Typhoon Durian blasted ashore with gusts ofup to 165 mph, running head-on into Mayon, 210 milessoutheast of Manila on Luzonisland.

"When the water suddenly rose, we ranfor our lives," said Lydia Buevos, 58, whoreturned with her husband and children Friday to see their hut gone. Holding apair of rubber sandals — the only possession she was able to save — she saidshe lost three relatives to the storm.

"It happened very rapidly and manypeople did not expect this because they haven't experienced mud flows in thoseareas before," Gonzalez said. "By the time they wanted to move, therampaging mud flows were upon them."

The typhoon weakened Friday as it movednorthward, with sustained winds of 94 mph and gusts of up to 116 mph as itheaded toward the South China Sea.

Cars zigzagged on the road to the affectedarea to avoid uprooted trees and toppled utility posts Friday. Steel pylons hadbeen bent down by the wind, and power cables lay scattered about like strandsof spaghetti.

With the sky surprisingly blue already,people dug foundations for new homes, hammering tin sheets onto leaking roofsand drying pillows, mattresses and clothes in the sun.

Durian was the fourth "supertyphoon" to hit the Philippinesin as many months. In late September, Typhoon Xangsaneleft 230 people dead and missing in and around Manila. Typhoon Cimaronkilled 19 people and injured 58 others last month, and earlier this month, Chebi sliced through the central Luzonregion, killing one.

About 20 typhoons and tropical storms hitthe Philippineseach year.

___

Associated Press writers Oliver Teves, Teresa Cerojano and JimGomez contributed to this story from Manila.

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The New York Times

Straight ‘A’ Student? Good Luck MakingPartner

ByJONATHAN D. GLATER

TO be a partner at a majorlaw firm is a virtual lock on wealth, prestige and influence. To achieve thatlofty goal, young lawyers willingly pore over deadly dull documents, draftamply footnoted briefs of inordinate length, shmoozewith clients no matter how boorish and work around the clock.

But just what, exactly, it takes to makepartner is elusive. A provocative new study of the reasonsbig law firms have so few minority partners claims there is a simpleanswer: grades.

Richard H. Sander, a law professor at the University ofCalifornia, Los Angeles,who prepared the study, wrote that there is a “credentials gap” between whiteand black law school graduates that may explain why black lawyers do not makepartner. He also found smaller gaps affecting Asian-American and Hispanic lawstudents.

The study, which comes as attacks onaffirmative action have gained strength in recent months, focuses on the lownumbers of minority partners at law firms. Of the 60,394 partners at 1,523 lawfirms that provide data to the National Association of Law Placement, nearly 95percent are white.

Partners at elite law firms acknowledge thenumbers are low. But they said grades received years earlier in law school hadlittle to do with promotion. “You don’t want to know about my grades,” saidReid H. Weingarten, a well-known litigator at Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, who iswhite.

Partners at top-tier firms said gradesmattered in hiring first-year associates, who may receive $135,000 a year (notincluding the bonus). But when deciding whom to make a partner, they saidgrades were not a factor. In fact, promotion decisions can be very subjective,dependent on perception as well as output. Research shows that informalnetworks within firms may exclude young minority lawyers.

“We look for people who are good working inteams, people who show the potential to be a builder of a practice, throughenhancing the reputation of the firm, enhancing and developing loyal clientrelationships,” said Keith C. Wetmore, chairman of Morrison & Foerster in New York.

Grades might show willingness to work longhours, but not judgment or people skills, which are harder to evaluateobjectively, many partners said.

Eric A. S. Richards, a partner and member ofthe partner admission committee at O’Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles, said that partners tried topredict whether rising associates could bring in business. “We look for thepromise,” he said.

When Mr. Sander described a causalconnection between low grades and success at law firms, he cited a separatesurvey of law graduates of the University of Michigan.He said the study found that those who were still at firms 15 years aftergraduation — who were more likely to have made partner — had higher grades.That survey included about 10,000 lawyers, the vast majority of them white, theprofessor said.

But African-American, Latino and Asianlawyers are not the only ones who are underrepresented as partners. Women, whofor years have been close to 50 percent of the law school students and make up44 percent of the associate population, are just under 18 percent of allpartners even though their law school grades are, overall, slightly higher thanthose of white men.

Mr. Sander said that women in recent yearshad been making partner at higher rates, and noted that women may more oftenleave firms to create time for family or for other reasons.

Minority lawyers may also leave voluntarily,said David B. Wilkins, director of the program on the legal profession at Harvard, adding that theyconstantly receive offers from clients seeking to poach them. Mr. Sander hasalso written a study of law school admissions, arguing that because of racialpreferences, law schools admit students who are less prepared and performpoorly — earning the lower grades. The system, as he sees it, is unfair tominority students because it sets them up for failure.

“In both situations, we have preferencesarguably undermining their intended effects,” he said, adding that the solutionwas to reduce preferences and improve training and support for minoritylawyers.

But several senior lawyers said that becauselaw firms are not such strictly objective meritocracies, hiring only minoritylawyers with higher grades would not necessarily mean more minority partners.

Many intangible factors, including luck,play a role. In a lean year, a firm will be reluctant to increase the number ofpartners splitting profits. A firm might promote a mediocre partner who speaksa specific language or has some other skill.

Then there are the all-importantrelationships formed between young lawyers and senior partners, said TheodoreV. Wells Jr., a partner at Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton& Garrison, who is black.

“What happens very often is some associatesare embraced more than others and it’s easier to fit in,” Mr. Wells said. “Ifyou’re a minority person in a majority firm there are inherent difficulties.”

Diara M. Holmes, a Washingtonlawyer who last week made partner at Caplin & Drysdale, in Washington,attributed much of her success to mentors.

“A mentor advocates on your behalf,obviously in the final decision but along the way as well,” said Ms. Holmes,who is the firm’s first African-American partner. “A mentor is also a personwho can ensure that when you make mistakes, which isinevitable in an associate’s career, they do not cause you to fall off thetrack. I can’t imagine that my ‘A’ in property got mehere.”

I hope everyone had a greatThanksgiving break. There are only two more weeks of class left before exams,so good luck!
If your organization wouldlike to be on our next digest, please send information to priscilla.baek@duke.edu.

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Asian American Studies Working Group

HiEveryone,

Just sending a reminder email that the Asian American Studies Working Group
will meet this Sunday, December 3 at 2pm.  I've selected the location tobe
on East Campus, by the couches near the entrance of the Marketplace.  Ilook
forward to seeing all of those who came last time, and also new faces!
Remember to invite friends you think might be interested.

This Sunday's meeting, I'm hoping we can brainstorm some more concrete
projects/questions that you'd like to tackle together.  We can split upinto
smaller groups too, if there's more than one thing we'd like to look into,
and depending on how many people want to be involved.  In the meantime,I'll
also try to create a listserv for us so we can begin to communicate/share
info more easily.

Some initial thoughts (just thoughts to put out there):

1) Planning out an afternoon for us to do a preliminary, face-to-face survey
on campus in order to get a better sense of the experiences of students of
Asian descent at Duke, as part of further research/investigation.
2) Working with me and others to invite some professors/grad students whose
work relates to Asian American studies to give presentations to us, and
engage in a discussion.
3) Maybe planning a group trip to the Nasher museumto view the exhibit
there.
4) Planning a group road trip to the annual Association of Asian American
Studies (AAAS) conference in April, this year to be held in NYC. See their
website (http://www.aaastudies.org/call.tpl),or below, for more
information.

Please do email me if you can't attend this Sunday's meeting, but are still
interested in AASWG, so I make sure to keep you in the loop.  Also, feel
free to send out emails as well, about interesting articles/events/ideas you
come across!

All the best,
Vivian

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DUU Major Speakers: Actor, Kal Penn
Monday, December 4, 2006, 4-5:30pm

Kal Penn, best known for playing Kumar in Harold andKumar Go to White Castle
and Taj in the upcoming Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, will be speaking at Page
next Monday.

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SUKETU MEHTA: A Conversation AboutBeing Human in Megacities

November 28, 4-5:30, Social Sciences 139

World famous author Suketu Mehta will discuss hisbook Maximum City, a 2005
Pulitzer Prize finalist.  A riveting account of Bombaythat covers every slice
of that city, from its gangsters to its Bollywoodstars, Maximum City has been
an international bestseller since its publication.  Mehta's intelligentand
energetic way of examining Bombaygets at the heart of what it means to be
human in any of the world's megacities.
Whether a resident of Bombay or a one-timetourist to New York,come take part
in what will surely be a wonderful and energetic conversation

What: Suketu MehtaConversation
When: November 28th, 4:00 pm- 5:30 pm
Where: Social Science 139

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The KOREAN UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT ORGANIZATION presents...

What: Korean Dessert Sampling and Film Festival
Which: "A Moment to Remember" (2004, Dir.JohnH. Lee)
When: 11/29 Wed 7:30pm (Dessert), 8:00 pm Film
Where: White Lecture Hall, East Campus

Come take a break from work and watch "A Moment to Remember" thisWednesday. The
film will be preceded by a reception with some delicious Korean sweets and a
brief introduction by Prof. Susie Kim of the AALL department at Duke.

A Moment to Remember (Starring Jung Woosung and Son Yejin)
-This movie represents Korean melodrama at its best with two of Korea's hottest
stars. Having won accolades for best screenplay at the Korean equivalent of the
Academy Awards, "A Moment to Remember" shines from beginning to endwith its
tragic, but beautiful love story. Directed by NYUFilm Schoolgraduate John H.
Lee, this movie is the highest grossing domestic film in the romance genre in
Korea.Subsequently released in Japanin 2005, "A Moment to Remember" broke box
office records for all Korean film openings in Japan.

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:::::::::::::::Participate in"What is Sexual Assault" Campaign:::::::::::::::::::

With a minute of your time, you can help contribute to our campus
understanding of issues surrounding sexual assault. Go to
www.duke.edu/web/saturdaynightand post your anonymous viewpoints to the
following questions (and sample responses).

Be honest, be creative, if it means saying non-PC thing, go ahead. There
you can also find out what other members of Duke communitythink.

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*1. What does sexual assault look like at Duke?*

"It looks like two of my best friends- I never anticipated that I would
be forced to be so personally affected and confronted by this issue when
I first arrived at this school."

"Ugly. Secretive.Widespread."

"I don't know. I just got here."

*2. Is there a gray area when it comes to sexual assault at Duke?*

"Absolutely not. Despite what some of my peers think, my short skirt,
flirty behavior, and high heels are not an invitation"

"Yes, there's a gray area, especially when people fail to communicate
with each other… "

*3. How can sexual assault be reduced?
*
"We need to stop having an attitude that sexual assault is a woman's
issue..... "

"I think there are two keys: education and communication.... "

Again, www.duke.edu/web/saturdaynightThanks so much!!

Yours sincerely,
Editors of Saturday Night: Untold Stories of Sexual ASsaultat Duke

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APSIFall Speaker Series: Joan Kee Thurs. Nov. 30, 6-7:30pm

Thenext speaker in the APSI fall speaker series is Joan Kee,who will
speak on Thursday, November 30.  Sponsored by Asian/Pacific Studies
Institute, the Nasher Museum of Art, and Departmentof Art, Art History,
and Visual Culture, talk information follows.

Joan Kee
Critic and Scholar

Kee was editor of a special issue of positions (12,3, Winter 2004) on East
Asian contemporary art and has published on film and art from Korea,
Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia in a wide range of journals
including Oxford Art Journal, Third Text, Yishu, andin the upcoming Duke
University Press book Alien Encounters: Asian American Popular Culture.

Joan Kee will speak on:

Thursday, November 30, 2006
6:00-7:30 pm
The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University
2001 Campus Drive (at the intersection of Duke University Road and Anderson
Street)

"In and Out of Context:  Imagemakingin Hong Kong"

Over the course of the past decade, much of Hong Kong's visual art has
centered on images of people, places, or objects belonging to a specific
Hong Kong, and more recently, a general Chinese context. The energy
invested in producing such images, and in particular, imageslinked to a
specific cultural provenance has been tremendous, thereby raisingquestions
of purpose. What is the purpose of such an enterprise of imagemaking?
Matched against the recent events of Hong Kong'shistory, these images
allude to a stratigraphy of conditions at play.Images act not only as
metaphors of a particular psychological state but as alibis that provide
believability to the work's claims of inhabiting multiple spaces of
reference at once.


Reception with light refreshments and cash bar immediately following talk


For additional information, call 684-2604 or visit www.duke.edu/APSI
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JP Morgan Asia Pacific Summer Internship
2007 SummerAnalyst and Associate Program: Internship Application Deadline December17th, 2006 (Sunday)

JPMorgan Asia Pacific offers exciting, challenging and hands-on summerinternship programs for talented individuals graduating in 2008.  Ourinternships will give you insight to our business, opportunity to work with ourbanker on deals, live the life of a trader, or be a member of the Asia research team!

Our deadlinefor resume submission is December 17th, 2006 (Sunday)

To submit your resume please apply on line via our recruitingwebsite at: http://asiapaccareers.jpmorgan.com/content/content_75.asp
Please clickon “Apply Now” --> US/UK Universities application.

2007Internship Programs:
BachelorsProgram
- InvestmentBanking Summer Analyst
- Sales &Trading Summer Analyst
- Research SummerAnalyst
- PrivateBanking Summer Analyst

MastersProgram
- InvestmentBanking Summer Associate
- ResearchSummer Associate
- PrivateBanking Summer Associate

Fluency ofan Asian language is preferred.

Forenquiries please send to jpmorgan_asia_recruiting@jpmorgan.com.
Pleasedo not submit resume via this e-mail. You should apply online to ensure that wecapture your details accurately and can get in touch with you.

Bestregards,
AsiaPacific Recruiting Team
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CrosstownConnections: Asian American Urbanism and Interracial Encounters
2007Association for Asian American Studies Conference
April 4-8, 2007
New York City, New York, Grand Hyatt

Submissions due by October 31, 2006
Send to: Stephanie Hsu at ssh13@cornell.edu

The theme of the 2007 AAAS Conference is "CrosstownConnections: Asian
American Urbanism and Interracial Encounters". Taking off from the
conference's location in New York City--thelargest city in the United
States and a historic internationalcrossroads for immigrants, visitors, and
commerce--this meeting explores cosmopolitanism in Asian American life, and
the multiple and shifting identities, attachments, and worldviews of Asian
Americans and those with whom they interact. The metropolitan area is home
to approximately 1.5 million people of Asian ancestry, the nation's
second-largest concentration, and Asian American laborers, students,
artists, businessmen, and intellectuals form a durable and central core
group in the city's fabric.

Asthe world's financial center and the hub of the nation's publishing and fashionindustries and artistic scene, New York has drawn both exceptional individualsof Asian ancestry, including writers, scholars, painters, musicians anddancers, and masses of workers. The port of New York serves as acontinuing place of welcome for Asian entrants and a point of transnationalcontact, transit and supply.

Weseek panels, papers, workshops, roundtables and teaching sessions that explorethe presence of Asian Americans in New York City and other urban environments--downtown,boroughs and suburbs alike and their experience within the various places andinstitutions that characterize city life: theaters, prisons, offices, museums,factories, streets, mass transit, schools and universities, restaurants, andtourist sites. In keeping with the theme of interracial
connections, we especially encourage papers that explore the correlations
and interactions between the experiences of Asian Americans and those of
other groups and communities that make up the urban landscape, notably
African Americans (including Caribbean Blacks); Latinos; Jews; Arab/Muslim
Americans; Irish, Slavic, and Italian Americans; Gays/Lesbians; and
evangelical Christians. In using New York as aspringboard, we also
encourage papers that discuss generally the experience of Asian Americans in
the Northeast (Mid Atlantic states and New England).In addition to paper
proposals, we invite panel proposals as well as workshops, roundtables, and
teaching sessions that explore ways of historicizing, contextualizing, and
critiquing the impact of urban life and interactions on the Asian American
experience.

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“On Common Ground 2007” @Stanford

It is our great pleasure to invite students fromDuke¹s Asian Student
Association to apply to the "On Common Ground 2007" conferencesorganized by the Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford (FACES), whichwill be held at Stanford University from April 8-14, 2007 and in Beijing or Shanghai
in November 2007.

The Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford (FACES) is a student-ledgroup founded at Stanford University and dedicated to fostering personal
relationships and understanding among future leaders in the United States
and China.FACES strives to promote interest and awareness inU.S.-China
relations and to build the foundation for a more constructive bilateral
future.

For "On Common Ground 2007", we will bring together 40 outstandingstudents
for a seven-day program in April at Stanford and then, in November, at a
university in Beijing or Shanghai. Our delegates will attend speechesand
panels with current and past leaders of both countries from academia,
business, and government. In the past, our delegates have had the privilege
to interact with and hear from former President George H.W. Bush, Sr.,
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, General Brent Scowcroft, Former U.K. Prime
Minister John Major, Former Vice Premier Qian Qichen, former National
Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski,former Secretary of Defense William J.
Perry, U.S.-China Business Council President Robert Kapp,and Ambassador
Michael Armacost.

We are contacting you because we believe that the students in your
organization will be a great addition to our conference and we hope that you
can inform them of the 2007 FACES conferences and encourage them to apply.
FACES will pay half the cost of international air travel, in addition to all
food and accommodation, for all delegates. For more information and
applications, please refer to our website at http://faces.stanford.edu.We
also encourage you to explore the attached FACES flyer and pamphlet. Please
feel free to distribute these materials through whichever means you find
most convenient.

Once again, we thank you for your help in spreading the word about FACES.
Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions or concerns. We look
forward to your students¹ participation in and contributions to "On Common
Ground 2007".

Sincerely,

Drew Camarda, Randy Yang and Wynn Tanner
Directors of Recruiting
Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford
http://faces.stanford.eduor http://www.stanford.edu/group/faces

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INVITATION TO AN INFORMATION SESSION FOR THE MELLON MAYSUNDERGRADUATE FELLOWSHIP

DATE: MONDAY, DECEMBER 4
TIME: 7:00 P.M.
PLACE: MULTICULTURAL CENTER, THE BRYAN CENTER



The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program, now in its 10th year at Duke,is a two- year fellowship program for students who are thinking seriously aboutgetting their PhDs and becoming professors in a wide variety of disciplines.  The program is targeted to underrepresented minority students and otherswith a demonstrated commitment to eradicating racial disparities.


Each year, five sophomore students at Duke are selected as Mellon MaysUndergraduate Fellows. They receive stipends for the academic terms and summersfor two years. During the summers the Fellows, under the direction of a facultymentor, pursue some form of directed study intended to give them a sense ofscholarly research activities.  During the academic year they may: (1)continue their independent research; or (2) work as a research assistanton a project which the faculty mentor is currently pursuing; or (3) work oncurricular or teaching projects of interest to their faculty mentor.

 A student applying to the Program must have a faculty mentor and adefined initial project. Fellows are awarded an annual stipend of $5,100 ($3300for the summer and $900 per semester), a $750 summer housing allowance, and atravel budget  of up to $400.  In addition,each Scholar receives a project supplies budget of $350 per year. Mentorsreceive an annnual award of $750.


For more program details, including the "Mellon disciplines," visit our website: *http://www.aas.duke.edu/trinity/mmuf*


If you think you may be interested in applying for this fellowship program,please plan to come to the informal information session on December 4.

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ConvenientElitism [The Harvard Crimson] Opinion

Published On 11/27/2006 1:20:36 AM

By DEBORAH Y. HO and SHAYAK SARKAR

Harvard is not a meritocracy. Not only do the costs of thissystem weigh disproportionately upon Asian Americans, the considerationsprioritized above merit also come at the expense of true diversity beyondracial tokenism: a diversity of socioeconomic background and representationfrom within racial groups.

To pretend that applicants’qualifications and life experiences are all that matter in admissions onlyresults in superficial explanations for the discrepancies in admissions ratesamong different groups. College admission is an unavoidably subjective process,and, according to the admissions office, the vast majority of applicants couldbe successful at Harvard. The limited number of places available demands somekind of secondary screening process beyond academic ability, and rightly so:All students are more than just numbers and contribute both inside and outsidethe classroom. That said, the rosy vision of the admissionsprocess as choosing a diverse set of the best of the best is not the wholestory.

Harvard, for better or worse, would not be Harvard without legacies, athletes,and underrepresented minorities, considerations that complicate an alreadynot-so-meritocratic process. Recent discussionsregarding the lower acceptance rate for apparently more qualified AsianAmerican applicants have revealed an ugly bias against Asian Americans at IvyLeague admissions offices. According to Jerome Karabel’sbook “The Chosen,” this bias has been prevalent since the 1980s.

In fact, in response to public pressure about discrimination and quotas in1988, Harvard’s Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67asserted that “while Asian Americans are slightly stronger than whites onacademic criteria, they are slightly less strong on extracurricular criteria.”These comments are eerily reminiscent of the stereotyping of Jews in attemptsto limit their enrollment in the early 20th century.

Daniel Golden reveals in “The Price of Admission” that Harvard admissionsofficers rank “Asian American candidates on average below whites in ‘personalqualities,’” as well as frequently comment that they are “‘quiet/shy” and “hardworkers.” Without evidence to substantiate these generalizations, thesecomments smack of a self-fulfilling stereotype: Admissions officers expectAsian applicants to have such qualities, and therefore see these in them moreso than they would in a non-Asian applicant. Besides the intrinsicallyproblematic nature of such generalizations, since when did shy, quiet, andhardworking somehow become “below average personal qualities?”

We, the students of this university, are not some hand-selected intellectualelite that unquestionably earned our place here. We were chosen to reflectdiverse forms of merit in an arguably arbitrary way. Asian Americans areunderrepresented relative to their academic performance simply because, inlight of other considerations that are prioritized above merit, there are morequalified Asian applicants than will be accepted. Rationalizations based onspeculation about the personal qualities of these students compared to those ofother ethnic groups are based on ill-informed and racist stereotypes.

Arguably, there are benefits that come with preferring legacies and athletes,but these come at the cost of not only rejecting well qualified Asianapplicants but also admitting a more diverse candidate pool. Karabel reports in “The Chosen” that 40 percent of legacieswere admitted in 2002 compared to 11 percent of other applicants. There is abias here that is not simply based on merit: While one might argue that legacyadmits are simply correlated with better qualifications, high-performing AsianAmericans are suffering the opposite of this kind of preferential admission.

Furthermore, former Princeton President William G. Bowen and interim UniversityPresident Derek C. Bok show in their book “The Shapeof the River” that only one percent of white students at the most selectiveinstitutions come from the lowest socioeconomic backgrounds, while over 90percent of students at these selective institutions come from households abovethe median American income ($60,000 per year). This lack in socioeconomicdiversity is also linked to racial diversity, skewing not only students’perceptions of what is normal or average in this country, but also what racialcategories such as “Asian American” really represent.

While race does tend to correlate with socioeconomic status, a broad range ofsocioeconomic backgrounds is represented in the category of Asian Americans.Comprised of all people from Asian descent, the majority of whomare close to the immigrant experience, Asian Americans came to the U.S. aseverything from job-seeking professionals to refugees fleeing oppressiveregimes. A recent post to The Crimson’s blog, TheMagenta, admitted that The Crimson’s editorial on Asian American admissionsused the term “loosely” to denote people of East Asian descent, completelydisregarding entire subpopulations of the term “Asian American.” Sadly, thiscasual use is far from uncommon but does a serious disservice to populationssuch as underrepresented Southeast Asian Americans, who were found in a studyby New York University to have one of the highesthigh school dropout rates.

When considering how much further admissions must progress in order to includethese and other often forgotten communities, there is more to consider thanrace. Our concern is not simply about clarifying the contentions regardingAsians in the college admissions process; it is about acknowledging thatprivileging legacies, athletes, and other groups necessarily precludes ameritocracy.

There is a fine line between subjectivity and systematic exclusivity, and thecomments documented by Golden attest to how easily the former can lead to thelatter when the process loses transparency and accountability. We sacrificemeritocracy because of our belief in the merit of diversity, but it is ourresponsibility to ensure that this diversity is not used to justify aconvenient elitism.



Deborah Y. Ho ’07 is a biochemistryconcentrator in Mather House. She is the co-founderand co-president of the Asian American Women’s Association. ShayakSarkar ’07 is an applied math concentrator in Mather House.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=515995

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On Asian-American Admissions [The HarvardCrimson] Opinion

Affirmativeaction, despite its shortcomings, is largely effective

Published On 11/20/2006 1:18:20 AM

By THE CRIMSON STAFF

A Nov. 11 Wall Street Journal article by Daniel Golden—a 2004winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his series of articles exposing the hugeadmissions advantages afforded to privileged white students—exposed what mightappear to be another disturbing college admissions trend. Some analyses ofstandardized test scores show that Asian-American applicants, on average, mustattain higher scores to snag admission to some of the nation’s most desirableschools. But these statistics, while initially disturbing, are the result of ajust and well intentioned system of affirmative action in college admissions.That system should not be abandoned in the face of harsh numbers.

Yet the numbers are startling. A studyby the Center for Equal Opportunity found that Asian-American applicants toselective colleges have significantly higher test scores than applicants ofother races. For example, in 2005, the median test score for Asian studentsoffered admission to the University of Michigan was 50 pointshigher than the median score for white students, 140 points higher thanHispanic students, and 240 points higher than black students. (The SAT used a1600-point scale at the time.)

This comparison yields figures worthy of pause. It suggests the existence of animplicit quota on the numbers of Asian-American students at some schools.(Asian-Americans make up about 4.5 percent of the nation’s population, but only10 percent to 30 percent of students at elite U.S. universities.) But there aretwo reasons why the score gap is not as startling as it should seem. First, thenature of affirmative action exaggerates the differences in measures ofacademic success for which it is trying to correct. For instance, students ofcolor, who tend to be poorer, average lower SAT scores than wealthier students.Their lower SAT scores perhaps indicate a lack of opportunity to succeedacademically, because of their financial circumstances, more than they suggestan academic deficiency.

Second, quantifiable academic criteria, especially SAT scores, are not the solecriteria for college admissions. Colleges are first and foremost academicinstitutions, but when a college chooses each new class, it does so with theknowledge that not everybody who graduates will be launched into an academiccareer. A college such as Harvard is searching for students who will be leadersin all spheres of the world, and that search requires picking applicants fromall walks of life. Moreover, colleges seek to balance their classes withstudents of all backgrounds, which is difficult to do if some minorities arenot sufficiently represented.

Colleges, then, are right to forgive some students’ lower scores. Leadershipqualities, extracurricular involvement, achievement outside of the classroom,and raw demographics are factors that are key inevaluating every applicant. When the numbers are tabulated, a few snapshots ofthe data will look extreme, but this is no reason to flee from a worthyprocess.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=515908