“To ensure that our community embraces and supports individuals from all racial, ethnic, religious, gender, sexual orientation, class, disability, and nationality groups in their chosen pursuits.”

— A Cornell Diversity Goal

As Cornell students, we feel that the University must boost its efforts to support Asian and Asian American students, henceforth collectively called “Asian” due to limited space.

The push to support Asian students has been ongoing for at least 15 years, but we have not had services explicitly designed to serve us until this year. The long struggle for equity came to light in 2004 with the advent of the Asian and Asian American Task Force (AAATF) Report.

The report, which can be viewed in its entirety on the Gannett website, found alarming results:

• 11 out of 20 suicides from 1996 to 2004 were committed by Asian students;

• Asian women frequently encounter verbal, physical and sexual attacks;

• The numbers of Asian staff and faculty do not reflect the diversity of the student population;

• A survey of seniors graduating in 2000 shows that Asian students were least satisfied with their experiences at Cornell;

• Students perceived a lack of support that targeted the needs of Asians;

• Asian students underutilize mental health services;

• Due to the pervasive stereotype that they do not encounter any social or academic problems, Asian students feel that the racism they face is ignored.

Based on these issues, it made two recommendations: first, that an Assistant Dean position be created to oversee the needs of Asian students; second, that a central space be established on campus for Asians.

The Student Assembly’s Resolution 8, which requested that Cornell uphold the report recommendations, was passed in Nov. 2007. In March 2008, under increasing student pressure, administrators designated a committee to establish an Asian/Asian American Center (A3C). The committee created a joint Assistant Dean/Director of the A3C position, which has been held by Patricia Nguyen since April 2009. This semester, a small office designated as the “center” opened: it boasts a room capacity of about six people.

In addition to the issues outlined in the AAATF Report, new and equally concerning issues have surfaced.

In being lumped into the umbrella “Asian” category, underrepresented ethnic groups that tend to lie below the poverty line — including Laotians, Cambodians, Vietnamese and Hmong — may be left by the wayside. We are by no means against a pan-Asian identity; we are merely underscoring the diversity that exists beneath the label.

Resources available to international students — 60 percent from Asia — are in short supply, as the International Students and Scholars Office continues to be overwhelmed with visas and paperwork.

Everyone has to adjust to the stress of Cornell life. But students from non-English speaking countries also face language and cultural barriers. According to international student Samantha Dong ’11, traditional community values explain why Asian international students seek support from people with similar cultural backgrounds. We hope that the A3C will provide the necessary support for international students.

The primary concern, then, should focus on constructive brainstorming: What can we do to move forward with the center and make much-needed, sustainable progress in the community?

“[The A3C] is in a reflection year: we are still exploring the needs of the community,” Nguyen expressed to us. “The needs of such a community — from undergraduate to graduate to professional, from international to American, from East to Southeast to South Asian, let alone specific issues pertaining to students with intersecting identities such as multiracial, queer, class, gender and [differently abled] — are equally diverse.”

If Cornell does indeed “embrace and support” individuals from all groups, then it needs to address the high rates of dissatisfaction of Asian and international students with the campus climate. Clearly the research must continue. Cornell should take the initiative to figure out what it needs to improve in our communities and how to do it.

If Cornell does “embrace and support” individuals from all groups, then it needs better ways to address bias — whether it be racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism or other forms of it. Plenty limitations plague the current bias protocol — certainly more than can be addressed here. According to students who have personally faced bias on campus, the University tends to mishandle such incidents — and that's a euphemism. The University should do more to investigate incidents and support victims. The whole community needs to be made aware of these incidents. And we need to comprehensively review the current bias protocol on multiple levels.

If Cornell does “embrace and support” individuals from all groups, then a more accurate representation of University staff and faculty needs to exist: Asians make up 20 percent of the student body, while people of Asian descent make up only three percent of Cornell staff and faculty, according to the Cornell Division of Planning and Budget.

Patricia Nguyen needs full-time staff committed to the A3C. She does the work of at least three people: Assistant Dean, Director of the A3C and Office Manager. Moreover, the center should be much larger than it is. And we — as well as the alumni passionate about this project who have generously donated toward it — hope to see the A3C to become a free-standing building in the near future.

We do not stand alone.

Caroline Hugh ’10, a senior in the College of Human Ecology, is the former co-chair of the Asian/Asian American Center Committee, which started in March 2008 and ended in May 2009. She may be reached at ch455@cornell.edu.