AAC&U News | May 02

Asian American Studies at University of Massachusetts/Boston
a Model Focusing on Immigrant and Refugee Populations

As as a senior at Harvard in 1980 and then as community activist, Dr. Peter Nien-Chu Kiang and fellow students made sure that a "one time only" Asian American Studies seminar was offered four more times in response to undergraduate demand. By 1987, Kiang had established something more permanent: the Asian American Studies program at the University of Massachusetts, Boston (UMass). The curriculum, which he describes as "holistic, locally grounded, interdisciplinary, intercollegiate, and community-centered" has grown to become a nationally recognized model within the field of Asian American Studies.

A distinguishing characteristic of the UMass program is its attention to immigrant and refugee populations. "[We serve] a predominantly immigrant working class, and first generation college-going student body [that is] quite different from the profiles of Asian American students at most universities with Asian American Studies programs," says Kiang.

Boundary-crossing and community-building have proved crucial to the development of the program's unique interdisciplinary curriculum and pedagogy. Faculty are anchored in each of the five UMass colleges --- arts and sciences, education, management, nursing, and public and community service. They also collaborate with a number of administrative and academic departments including American Studies, English, Psychology, Teacher Education, Enrollment Services, Institutional Advancement, and the Center for the Improvement of Teaching. The program also works closely with the university's Institute for Asian American Studies (IAAS) to develop new courses and facilitate research and service learning opportunities. It also supports the Coalition for Asian Pacific American Youth (CAPAY), a leadership network that brings together high school students, community leaders, and graduate students.

Kiang, who has spent much of his career as an ethnic-studies program pioneer, feels that his years of community-organizing in Boston's Chinatown grounded his teaching as much as his doctoral studies. He sees activism, democracy, and civic engagement as fundamental to the work of Asian American studies and asks the central question: "How can the revolutionary founding principles of the ethnic studies fields to empower students and communities and transform higher education be integrated concretely with our contemporary social and institutional realities and help us to model best practices in higher education innovation today?"

The capstone course of the UMass program requires students to integrate theory and practice developed from previous coursework by conducting a research project or by participating in a supervised community-based internship at neighborhood health centers, school-based bilingual programs, multi-service agencies, ethnic newspapers, and community-based research and advocacy projects. Students also must meet a comparative studies requirement by taking courses such as "Black Social Movements" or "Hispanics in Urban America."

The Asian American Studies program has led several collaborative initiatives at UMass in recent years with funding from the Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants and the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations related to Asian American youth development and K-12 education reform; immigrant community leadership and civic participation; and Vietnamese diaspora studies. Program faculty and students are now expanding commitments to multiethnic theater, Asian immigrant community health issues, and the needs of Asian American students on campus.

The University of Massachusetts, Boston was a leadership institute in AAC&U's project, American Commitments: Diversity, Democracy, and Liberal Learning. A six-member team of Asian American Studies faculty represented UMass Boston in AAC&U's Boundaries and Borderlands III curriculum. The program will be featured in the forthcoming issue of AAC&U's quarterly Diversity Digest. Kiang also serves on the national panel of AAC&U's Greater Expectations Initiative.

For more information on the Asian American Studies program at UMass Boston, visit: www.umb.edu/academic_programs/undergraduate/cas/asian_american_studies/ ; visit www.iaas.umb.edu/ for the Institute for Asian American Studies (IAAS) and http://fly.to/capay for the Coalition for Asian Pacific American Youth (CAPAY).

For a report titled "Long-Term Effects of Diversity in the Curriculum: Analyzing the Impact of Asian American Studies in the Lives of Alumni from an Urban Commuter University", visit: www.diversityweb.org.

For more information on the Greater Expectations National Panel, visit www.aacu.org/gex/Panel/index.cfm.