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 9th 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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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.
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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.”
