Asian American Students Association

A.A.S.A. executive board meetings are regularly held on Wednesdays from 7-8PM at the Third World Center Formal Lounge on the third floor. Anyone is welcome to come! Meeting summaries are updated weekly to keep you informed on what the e-board's been up to.

4/16/08 Meeting

1.     Nightmarket on Saturday, April 26th from 8 to 11, Leung Gallery of Faunce
a. We will be playing the “Iron Chef” game
b. Prizes: ask around for a gift certificate from a restaurant (for the raffle grand prize) and Chinatown for small prizes (ie mini-jellos, pocky, etc)

2.     Straight Talk: Social event this Friday at 3 pm in the North Lounge of the Watson International Studies Building
a. Symposium planning begins right after we get back from summer break
b. Happens in the Fall, usually 2-3 weeks before Thanksgiving break

3.     Asian Film Fest from 8 to 9 in Wilson 101
a. No table slips this time, just word of mouth, facebook, morning mail
b. Pizza will be there!

4.     Relay for Life:
a. 6 pm to 6 am! Trip to Louie’s after! Come join us for the walking fun and the cool performances, or if you just want to hang out with us.

5.     Chinese Laundry Update:
a. Petition has been given, but there is seem to be no further updates.

6.     End of the Year Party:
a. TBD!

4/9/08 Meeting

I. Myung-mi Kim Speaker Series Issue
a. Let the department know that we will be inviting her next semester

II. Film Festival
a. April 17th, 8:00 pm, location TBA
b. Morning Mail, Brown University Calendar, PAC listserv, Powerpoint slides for TV Screen

III. Elections
a. Co-chairs (2), PAN Asian Outreach/GB planning, Advertising/Publicity, Treasurer, Communications/Webmaster, Fundraising, Secretary
b. Send top 2-3 positions you are interested in by Monday Night

IV. BTS Night Market
a. Date has been moved to April 26th Sat.
b. Venue TBA

V. Relay for Life
a. Go Team AASA!
b. April 18th 6:00 pm – 6:00 am

VI. Chinese Laundry Update
a. Delivered the petition & met the manager
b. Individual letter signed, target the advertisements, apology, BDH possible topics, Independent, women groups, form some sort of committee, maybe contacting sexual assault task force

VII. Budget for Speakers for Next Semester
a. Has to be finalized by Next Wednesday to be submitted to UFB
b. UFB Speaker Budget needs to be all spent solely for speakers

3/19/08 Meeting

1. Speaker series:
    a. Publicity materials: poster is ready and can double as a tableslip too
    b. Daily Jolt
    c. Facebook
    d. TV screens
    e. Posters up by Saturday
    f. Tableslipping: Monday through Thursday (after spring break)
    g. Morning Mail: break the morning mail notices into multiple events/dates
    h. Funding updates

2. Relay for Life:
    a. April 18th: sign up guys!

3. Chinese Laundry: we need to find out more and update further.

4. Film Festival: after much heated debate and discussion, final Decision: You are Not Your Khakis

5. Elections: April 9th, have your ideas/desired positions ready by then

3/12/08 Meeting

1.    Asian Arts Fest Feedback
2.    Brown Daily Herald correction
3.    Fundraising for Myung-Mi Kim:
            confirmed: Comp Lit, Sarah Doyle Women’s Center, Office of Institutional Diversity, Center for Race and Ethnicity, Office of Student Life, and our own speaker funds
4.    Advertising:
            Poster and Tableslips
                One for the week, one of the movie
                Tableslip can be a condensed/summarized poster
            TVs of Ratty, SciLi, Faunce
            Banner at the Ratty
5.    Event Dates
            Myung Mi Kim at 4 pm on 4/1 in Wilson 102
            Leigh Jenco’s discussion at 7 pm in Wilson 101 on 4/2
            First screening of “Secret Sunshine” in Macmillan 115, 9 pm on 4/2
            Discussion with Rey Chow at 5:30 in Wilson 102 on 4/3
            Re-screening of “Secret Sunshine” in Saloman 202 on 4/4
6.    Look at the website regarding the Asian Film Fest, pick out your favorite choice by next week’s e-board meeting

3/5/08 Meeting

1.    AASA Speakers series (tagline "re-examining politics, culture, and identity?)
a.    Co-sponsorships/fundraising targets: Student Groups, Departments, Dean’s Office
b.    Professor Rey Chow: Movie showing at the night before?
       i.     Reserved Saloman 001 for April 2nd, 2008, so we can show the movie the night before
       ii.    Should we show the movie 2x? Once the night before and then again on Friday.
            1. Reserve some sort of room on main campus for April 4th at 7 pm.

2.    Asian Film Fest (as our April GB)
a.     Rescheduling of date: to Thursday, April 17th?
b.    Location: Petterutti, 8 pm
c.     Decide on film selection later, ie next e-board

3.    Relay for Life
a.     Please sign-up!

4.    Corrections to BDH article

2/27/08 Meeting

I. GB with Brown Dem
a.      Feb. 28, Thursday 8:00 – 9:00 pm @Wilson 301
b.      Getting Meeting St. Cookies!
c.      Ask for three most important topics that concern members the most
d.      Youtube clips showing students voting & discussions

II. Speaker Week
a.      Myung Mi Kim Tuesday April 1st @ 4:00 pm
b.      Professor Leigh Jenco Wednesday April 2nd @ 4:00 pm – ask for time change to 7:00 pm since people cannot make it due to classes
c.      Comp Lit Event, Thursday April 3rd @ 4:00 pm Wilson 102
         i.      Korean Film – Secret Sunshine
         ii.      3 Comp lit professors discussing the film and how it is related to Orientalism
d.      Need a title for the week!

III. CAC Grant
a.      Seeks to bring in diverse performance groups on campus
b.      Application due March 7th
c.      Ill-literacy Band: Half music & half poetr

IV. Asian Arts Fest
a.      Usher / people to sell the tickets
b.      Posters & tableslips
c.      Script for MCs & a short skit for AAF committee
d. After “Gathering” (note: NOT after “Party”)

VI. Relay for Life
a.       Please go register online

2/20/08 Meeting

AAF and working with Brio
·      Poster for AAF

o   Perhaps we can bring this spoken word group: Ill-literacy

GB meeting
o   Publicity: we will have one version of the tableslip
o   Tableslipping starting …. Soon.
·      Comp-Lit AASA collaboration:
o   Speculatively: the first week of April
o   Professor speaking on orientalism?

2/13/08 Meeting

1.     Weekly meeting time has now been moved to 7pm on Wednesdays

2.     Speaker ideas:
·      EA dept: Will get back to us with a list of speakers they are interested in.
·      Comp Lit: Dept head would like to come and give a talk, about modern film, and we might also show a movie in addition to her talk (so that students can have something to talk to her about).
·      Stacey: may ask her polisci freshman year seminar teacher to come give a talk.
·      Maybe Professor C could steer her talk more towards colonialism, post-colonialism
·      Soobin will try to contact/find more information about Amy Tan.
·      How to define/deconstruct Orientalism such that we don’t propagate inappropriate ideas.

3.     GB: at 7:30 pm tentatively for Thursday, feb 28th, maybe at Petterutti
a.     Brown democrats, democracy matters, students for hillary, students for obama, brown republicans
b.     Hudson to contact Asian American Legal Defense Fund and see if they are interested in coming

4.     Relay for Life
a.     Friday, April 18th, 6 pm to 6 am.
      i.     8 are committed

5.     AASA performance at AAF
a.     Collage of voices and monologues of stories, around several themes (yet to be determines) to show continuity between past and present, and show diversity of issues
        i.     Everyone will be participating, and will be contributing a piece (written) that is under a minute.

6.     SEACO
a.     future collaborate ie. community service events

7.     Film Presentation
a.     Collaborate with First Friday (April 4th?)
        i.     Show film in Petterutti

8.     Mission Statement
a.     Redrafting as a group
b.     TASK FORCE! Action during a e-board meeting, open to the general public, date to be decided later.

2/6/08 Meeting

1) Co-host with complit: have poets, ~3 Asian American writers, see if other students groups would like to work with us, a possible panel? Co-sponsor with Brown Book Store?

What will be our topics of discussion?
Perhaps have authors speak about trend of how Asian American literature is written.
Network with ECAASU? See if they want to contribute (as speakers, etc)?
Have students contribute? Co-sponsor with Visions?
Spread out the event – over a week, over a month?
Location? Bookstore? Do we want to appeal to an outside audience as well as Brown students?
Co-sponsorship from the English Dept (Asian Americans in Literature class)
Projected date: End of April

2) Treasure duties

3) First GB meeting for February: Informational meeting to attract/inform new members.

Topic: The upcoming presidential election
Possible sources of info: Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Asian-American Justice Center
Presentations: Students for Obama, Students for Hillary, Brown Republicans
Date: near a primary, so as to attract a bigger audience?

4) Budget

5) Progress for skit for Asian Arts Fest

6) AASA Relay for Life Team

7) Film Festival: DVD from last semester was damaged (skipping occurred), so we have credit with them, and we get another shot at a film festival. Hopefully we can get the same DVD again!

8) Feminist Majority Leadership Association: Will we co-sponsor them (financially)?

9) Creative Arts Council (flexible fund grant program): visiting artists, symposia, lectures, etc, financial support for next year.

Heads up if you want to do a project through AASA
Deadline is March 7th

10) Last Night Fund: What can do to get some funding?

What dates are already taken? What is available?

11) Updating the Website: What should we put on the front page?

What to do on our MyGroups page?

12) Revising the Mission Statement:

We should have a GB meeting so that everyone can have some input!

1/29/08 Meeting

1) Yay! We have 7(!) people signed up for ECAASU! Transportation is being arranged.

2) Who will be our MCs for Asian Arts Fest? (That is the million-dollar question…)

AASA event for Asian Arts Fest: Will it be a skit? A comedy? A musical? Only time will tell.
Theme for AAF: “Capturing Images: A Collage of Community” [Now try and say that 10 times fast]
The Activities Fair is next Tuesday

3) City Year: We may be having a group activity, depending on interest.

4) Speakers for next semester? One possibility: Myung-Mi Kim; She is an Asian American Poet who teaches at the University of Buffalo, and would most likely speak about her work and her experience as an Asian American poet. Any other suggestions? Please! Speak up!

Possibity: Joint presentations/speakers with other organizations, like Comparative Literature or Ethnic Studies. This way, we can have multiple speakers!

5) Our weekly meeting time (for joy!): Wednesdays at 7:30 pm.

12/6/07 Meeting

1) Film Festival: All set (media services for 6:30 pm). Table-slipping is all set!

2) City Year: Jose came to speak, Yay! Jose and his co-workers have committed for a year (10 month commitment with about 35 hours a week), but would like to set up projects/collaborations with us and/or other organizations.

ie: beautification projects (last year at a battered women’s center: fall pruning, gardening, cleaning up the playground)
hoping to diversify the volunteers involved with City Year, b/c currently there are no Asians involved in City Year Rhode Island.
Passed out a schedule of volunteer opportunities available through the upcoming year.

Young Heroes Program: workshops/discussions, service projects with middle school students.
Be a team leader!

Location of sites: all within Providence, Jose and co specifically in Olneyville.
Next semester opportunities:

Civic Engagement Team plans most events, so they have yet to make concrete plans for next semester.
MLK day set for activities, though Brown students won’t be back for school by then.
Transportation is not provided, but we can decide on a day weeks in advance, (with a detailed itinerary), maybe transport by Ripta?
Main Office is a 5 minute walk from Kennedy Plaza.

3) Asian Arts Fest:
Need a committee (publicity, recruitment, time organization, etc) for organizing this event

4) ECAASU:
Fee goes up on January 4^th to $55. Please register now (to save on registration fees), though we will reimburse people later next semester.

We need to figure out logistics, especially for transportation.
Print out your receipt and save it

5) Reflection for the Semester:

Prolific, quality events
Recruit more next semester and also publicize more so that more people are more aware of us as a group.

Informative table-slips, specific person-to-person

Educational events to discuss current events, academic issues
Have yet to revise our mission statement, perhaps a small group will take this task to hand

Especially necessary for goals when we plan events

Think of some potential speaks for next semester!

6) Come to our end-of-the-year party! It’s currently set for December 15^th, 2007 at 8 pm in Katharine’s suite. Bring a present for pirate’s booty gift exchange (gender-neutral, $5-$10). Be there or be square.

11/15/07 Meeting

1. Monday GB, 7 pm Upper Blue Room - Table-slips made; YouTube files are ready!

a. Food and drinks? Food for movies (popcorn), soda
b. Format of discussion? Ice breakers if small enough group
c. Step in - step out?
d. Smaller group? Introductions, discussions, random facts about people
e. Specific questions

2. Eliot Chang
a. Starla and Sons is interested in doing a crowd-warm up
b. Eliot Chang requested 4 tables for merchandise but we can only provide 2 (max)
c. Ushers
d. Table slipping - M, T, W: please sign-up via email! (which will be sent out soon)

3. Street Bazaar (11/17/2007)
a. Starts at 7.
b. Spinner: from SAO board game
d. Prizes: Giant prize from some restaurant: Thayer Street? Wickenden Street?
e. Advertising for other events
f. New Dorm B 202: Party at Katharine's suite!

4. Film Festival (12/7/07) 7pm
a. Ordered, Hudson will pick it up during Thanksgiving break (save on shipping, yay!)
b. Request for Media Services help!
c. Eventually need to tableslip for that (and make a tableslip)

5. ECAASU (East Coast Asian American Student Union)
a. Cornell, Feb 15th-17th (Friday through Sunday)
b. AASA will cover registration fees, so please register early if you are interested (to save on fees): November 25th is the end of early-bird registration

11/8/07 Meeting

1.) Eliot Chang fundraising - Good job guys, and keep at it!

2.) Next GB (November 19th) - possible clips to play include: Desperate House Wives, Tila Tequila, Jackie Chan Adventures, House, Kung Fu, and Iron Chef. Thanks to Wei for volunteering to convert the YouTube clips into something that can be saved onto a computer and played back later. We should tableslip this upcoming Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then the 19th (Monday) as well. For publicity: Jolt, TV screen procedures (for the Ratty, the Blue room, etc), email the Listserv, and Morning Mail.

3.) Street Bazaar -November 17 (this upcoming Saturday, a week from now) 7-10pm Location: Sayles Hall. Issues to clear up: how is reimbursement for materials working out? We still have to procure ping-pong balls and make/steal spinners.

4.) Film Festival - discounts?

5.) City Year Rhode Island - They hope to cooperate with AASA to in many different programs like the Young Heroes program, which provides role models for middle school students. Also, we can help with service days, where volunteers help work to beautify the environment, ie paint murals, etc. We still have issues regarding how transportation, etc will work out. One possible suggestion is that we can advertise this to our GB and others.

11/1/07 Meeting

1. Eliot Chang Fundraising: Good job guys! Possible departments that remain MCM, History Department, Stand-up comedy, Hanuri, etc...

2. Film Festival - we pick a collection of shorts...and we have decided on "For youth by youth!" The film festival is tentatively set for Friday, December 7th, 2007 in Macmillan 117 (assuming we can book it...but it is the Friday right before reading period, so our hopes are up!)

3. Street Bazaar - Set for Saturday, November 17th (so I was informed during the meeting, but I find it strange that the Bazaar is on Saturday...) Anyway, we have decided to play a brilliant game (courtesy of Katharine! Yay!): Iron Chef! We are going to have spinner (with random food dishes on it), the participants spin, get a dish, then dig through a bucket of ping-pong balls (which are labeled with individual ingredients) to "assemble" the dish. The players can win mini-prizes (Koala cookies, etc, which I will attempt to pick up this weekend), and there will be a final raffle for a big prize (a delicious dish that AASA eboard makes?!) Participants enter the raffle automatically, but maybe others can enter it with tickets or whatnot?

10/18/07 Meeting

1.) Co-sponsorship letter progress:
           i.      Follow-up with clarification that we are different from AAHM (separate budgets)

2.) GB next week: 8 pm Thursday. Location: Arnold Lounge, Keeney
        a. Ideas: study break with food, also a presentation in the background, with current Asian/Transatlantic issues (ie Dali Lama receiving Congressional Medal of Honor and China’s reactions), possibility of discussion for those who are interested
            i.      Advertisement for future AASA events
                        ii.      Representatives from other Asian groups to shout out, etc.

3.) November GB:
        a. Collaboration from MPC and MPC friends, who have done similar things?

4.) Asian Street Bazaar, November 17th, 2007
        a. New games or ideas? Please think about it!

5.) City Year Rhode Island, do we want to collaborate with them for a community day, etc?
        a. Mention next Thursday at GB.
        b. Middle School program – tutoring afterschool programs, etc
        c. Service Day – community beautification

6.) Asian Film Festival
        a. November 26 or 27th? (Monday, Tuesday)

10/11/07 Meeting

1.)    Fundraising for Eliot Chang’s honorarium:
        a.   Fundraising letter template
        b.    Lecture Board
        c.    Dole out contact responsibility for different fundraising sources, please keep in contact with your group(s):
                        i.   Please have letters sent out by next Friday!

2.)    DPS discussions

3.)    AASA Film Festival: Let us do it! (Rent some short films and hold an event)
        a.    South East Asian Film Festival: Nov 5th and 10th. Do we want to collaborate/co-sponsor/help?

4.)    Next GB on Wednesday, October 24th. Study break, DVDs, less formal.
        a.       Location: Arnold Lounge

5.)    Next GB, possible publicity for Eliot Chang: discussion of role of Asians in Media (ie Memoirs of a Geisha, Tila Tequila, Knocked Up, Mean Girls, etc.)

6.)    Co-sponsorship with Hanuri for North Korean Refugee Awareness Campaign (November 13/15th events). November 13th is the memorial march, and slide show. November 15th is their lecture regarding North Korean refugees.

7.)    We need to work on our Mission Statement. Revisions? Ideas?

8.)    A4 meeting Saturday, 4-5:30 at TWC, come on, come all!

10.) Visions wants submissions from writers, artists, etc. Deadline is Monday. Copy Editors desired, submit to Visions.brown@gmail.com

10/4/07 Meeting

1.)    Yay for freshmen who have showed up! (Welcome Paul and Soobin)

2.)    Eliot Chang – booked for Wednesday, November 28th at 8 PM, and Janine has been notified.
        a.       Perhaps we should reorganize the set-up of the event, ie have the discussion before the comedy.

3.)    For next week : discussion of goals for the year, film festival: Ahoy freshmen, we love you, please show up! Plus, we’d like to recruit you to help us plan the film festival event.

4.)    BASIC, next weekend – money set aside for registration and transportation. Who is interested?

5.)    DPS – Would we like to have informal discussion with DPS about racial profiling, whether we feel safe here at Brown? This can be opened up as a discussion with other groups present. Suggested time: October or early November, evening preferred, though early morning is also a possibility.
        a.      Possibility as a lead-in for a GB?
        b.      Invite e-board members from other Asian groups?

9/27/07 Meeting

1) GB feedback - Ppl felt that the GB was interactive and liked the slideshow. A suggestion for next time would be perhaps to have an ice breaker with appropriate size groups, to make the GB feel a little less formal. Also, the suggestion came up that we have GBs every month, and they don't have to be elaborately planned events (perhaps they could be movie nights, or whatnot).

2) Speaker Candidates: After a long bout of intense discussion and debating, it looks like we have decided to have ONE speaker, and at the moment we are going to try to bring comedian Eliot Chang to campus.

3) Regarding Hanuri, we have decided to co-sponsor the North Korean Refugee awareness event with $100 from raised funds.

9/13/07 Meeting

1) We will be getting an eboard listserv! Yay! What a coming attraction...

2) First GB will be next Thursday, September 20th at 9 pm in Petteruti Lounge. We will first do ice-breakers/split into little groups. Then we will have an informational presentation followed by group mingling and food. In the small groups, we hope to direct the conversations and find out what the new members would most like for AASA to complete this year.

3) Regular eboard meetings will be decided using http://www.when2meet.com/.

4.) We now have one representative to AAHM! The first meeting is set for this Saturday from 2 to 3, but will be held regularly on Sundays for the rest of the semester.

5.) Possible plans for AAHM: Perhaps Professor Irene Chung of Hunter College, who might speak on Asian American females, suicide, and depression. Perhaps we can also participate in a panel discussion regarding what it means to be Asian versus Asian-American.

6) Community service database, perhaps collaborating with other colleges in the local area.

2006 - 2007 Minutes

2005 - 2006 Minutes

2004 - 2005 Minutes