Asian and Asian-American students now have a center on campus solely dedicated to their needs, after a nearly decade-long fight to get the University to allocate more resources to the Asian community at Cornell.

Located in 208 Willard Straight Hall, the Asian/Asian-American Center (A3C) officially opened this semester, though the center is considerably smaller than proponents had originally sought.

Temporarily, the center consists of a single office space and one conference room located within the Office of Student Support and Diversity Education.

Although the center now has a physical center and a staff member, students and administrators said there is still much room for improvement.

“It is all a work in progress. Right now, I am spending time taking in what the community is all about and what it needs,” said Patricia Nguyen, who is the newly-appointed assistant dean of students for Asian/Asian-American outreach. “It’s more of a reflection year.”

Nguyen, who is the first assistant dean of students tasked with focusing on a single race, is the director of the A3C and its sole staff member.

Clara Ng-Quinn ’10, former member of the A3C development committee, said that the center lacks sufficient space, considering it is supposed to serve about 16 percent of the student body.

“I will not pretend that the center is fully compatible for what the center is needed for,” said Susan Murphy ’73, vice president for student and academic services. “But a year in the Straight will give Patricia more time to determine what needs to be achieved.”

Also, Nguyen said that a lack of staff members to help bring up and run A3C is becoming a major problem and that right now she is taking on a four-person job.

Her primary function is to help students in any sort of situation, she said.

Nguyen said she supports, provides resources to, and frequently meets with student organizations, which are the “social support network for the Asian American community.”

Nguyen also works with Asian-American alumni to keep them connected to the Asian-American community on campus. She said that the center has relied on these alumni connections to help fund the center.

Several alumni recently raised $150,000 for the center, the majority of which was donated by Kent Shane ’78.

These donations will not cover the cost of establishing a permanent center, which would require a couple million dollars, but they will fund various resources and support cultural programs, Nguyen said. Once this initial money is used, the center will depend on future donations, she said.

Funding for A3C has long been a contentious issue. A temporary center was originally planned for West Campus at 14 South Ave. The University was supposed to provide $30,000-$50,000 for construction and renovation, but the budget crisis put a stop to these plans, Nguyen said. The city also required additional restrooms to be installed, which raised the price of renovation considerably. With only alumni donations as funding, A3C developers believed the West Campus location was becoming too costly, Nguyen said. In the end, administrators decided to defer plans of continuing construction on West Campus and find a more affordable and accessible location for the temporary center, she said.

Nguyen also said she wants the AC3 to connect “cross-racially” with other minority constituencies on campus, such as the Latino and Gay, Bisexual, Lesbian and Transgender communities. Interacting with those groups that may face similar issues will instill a sense of social confidence and consciousness in students that will allow the students to graduate and comfortably interact with people of all races, she said.

“This center is not self-segregating. I want to help Asians and Asian-Americans learn the skills and confidence needed to go out and interact with the larger community,” Nguyen said. “The A3C is very similar to Greek life on campus.”

Nguyen said that the center shares unity-building and identity-forming goals with fraternities and sororities.

Murphy said that the University has no plans to add more staff members to the A3C because of the budget crisis, though the center may hire some students funded through Federal Work Study.

“There haven’t been any plans to eliminate the possibilities for a more permanent place. The current financial situation is a challenge that will affect all projects, including this one,” said Dean of Students Kent Hubbell ’67.

According to Nguyen, the lack of growth in the A3C is not due to opposition from the University’s administration. Most of the center’s issues are because of the financial crisis the University is facing, she said.

“It would be easy to cut such identity-based programs since they do not represent the entire population, but [the center] is very much needed,” Nguyen said.

The A3C is the first center to focus on the needs and welfare of Asians, who come from a place where their race is often dominant, and Asian-Americans, who may have faced racism throughout life, Nguyen said.

Murphy said that despite the University’s budget cuts, student diversity and welfare will remain “absolute priorities.”

“Not to say that diversity programs are immune to cuts … but we will be looking for redundancies in such programs in order to determine where reductions must be made,” said Murphy.

“[A3C] is a nexus for support of Asians/Asian-Americans and a place that will give Asians/Asian-Americans the chance to engage in the greater community,” Hubbell said.