Welcome to the Asian American Studies IDP

"I would rank the scholarly production and teaching that the IDP conducts at the very highest level and among the top five programs in Asian American Studies nation-wide, ranking alongside Cornell University, University of Wisconsin, Madison, University of California, Berkeley, UC San Diego, and UCI, surpassing them all in the range of faculty and the breadth of scholarly and pedagogical activities … It is abundantly clear … that this IDP has outlived its current structure. It needs to move into a Departmental status and it certainly has more than enough faculty (and highly renowned ones) to constitute a Department."

"There is no doubt that the AASP (Asian American Studies program) is the strongest AAS program in the country, and in my view, a wonderful asset for UCLA …I also believe that AASP has clearly outgrown the IDP structural parameters as they current exist at UCLA."

" ... we strongly recommend the continuation of the Center as an ORU and the establishment of Department of Asian American Studies while the two units continue to work closely and cooperatively in the years to come."

Asian Americans are the fastest growing minority group in the United States. The number of Asian Americans in the United States grew from 3.5 million in 1980 to more than 7.2 million in 1990 and more than 11 million in 2000, and is projected to increase to 20 million by 2020. California is the most racially and ethnically diverse state in the country and now claims more than 40% of the nation’s Asian American population. In Southern California and statewide, Asian Americans outpaced every other ethnic group in the rate of population growth during the 1990s, at 38%. Southern California has become home to the largest and most diverse Asian American population in the nation. Asian Americans now account for about 12% of the population in Los Angeles County and 14% in Orange County. At UCLA, close to 40% of the current undergraduate student population is Asian American.

There are striking similarities as well as significant differences among the various groups subsumed under the umbrella term Asian American. The similarities are inherent mainly from their common experiences as racial/ethnic minorities and as immigrants and children or grandchildren of immigrants in the United States. Dissimilarities exist in their national origins, cultural heritages, languages and dialects, religions, socioeconomic statuses, rural versus urban upbringing, and lengths of U.S. residency. Dissimilarities also exist between the immigrant and American-born generations, men and women, and the old and the young. The rapid growth of the Asian American population in the 1990s was primarily driven by immigration marked by the growing numbers of refugees, low-skilled immigrants, as well as highly skilled immigrants. While many Asian Americans have made inroads into America’s middle-class and moved into affluent areas, many others are still struggling below the poverty line, and Asian Americans are strongly represented at the upper-middle, middle, and bottom economic rungs of the American society.

The demographic profile of the Asian American population has shifted so drastically and quickly that researchers and practitioners are constantly facing the challenge of keeping pace with the changes taking place. Whereas university educators used to look upon Asian American Studies and other branches of ethnic studies as programs offering minority students courses that enhanced their self-esteem and the understanding of their own cultural heritages, this view of the field is now outmoded. Today, there are compelling pedagogical, intellectual, and practical reasons to support the development of Asian American Studies.

Asian American Studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines all the relevant aspects of the historical and contemporary experiences of Asian Americans, including their histories, communities, and cultures, as they constitute an indispensable part of American life. For example, Asian American history treats itself as an integral part of US history but highlights various aspects of Asian histories as they intersect with US history in time and space in order to show how developments in ancestral and new homelands have affected and continued to affect the lives of Asian Americans. Asian American communities, despite distinct internal structures, are not seen as isolated enclaves that will eventually dissolve through assimilation, but rather as dynamic and fluid entities that are embedded in and constantly interacting with the wider society. Asian American culture is viewed not as a simple "blending of East and West," but first, as a process of social, cultural, and psychological adaptation through which Asian Americans construct multiple identities and develop diverse patterns of interpersonal and interracial relationships within the context of sociocultural interaction, and second, as artistic expressions that reflect the development of Asian American literary voices and the emergence of Asian American artistic sensibilities.

As a specialized field in American higher education, Asian American Studies began in the late 1960s. Since then, Asian American Studies has blossomed into a full-fledged field of study, and a coherent body of knowledge has been accumulated with Asian American experience as its common thread. The field has been energized by the interdisciplinary dynamism that exists not only in history, cultural studies, and literature and literary works, but also in anthropology, political science, psychology, and sociology, as well as in education, social welfare, urban planning, public policy, health and medicine, law, and library and information studies. The field has also expanded into comparative areas of racial and ethnic relations in America, diasporic and transnational experiences/communities, global economy and development, and US-Asian relations. The interdisciplinary and comparative approaches allow Asian American scholars and students to move beyond the simple assumption that, because people share certain phenotypes, they must also share the same experiences, values, and beliefs. Asian American Studies has also injected historical and ethnic sensitivity into various academic disciplines and prevented itself from being trapped as an isolated elective subdiscipline. Each year more and more scholars and students join the Association for Asian American Studies and attend the association’s annual meeting. The leading journal of Asian American Studies, the Amerasia Journal, published by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, has enjoyed three decades of definitive and innovative scholarship; and Journal of Asian American Studies, the official journal of the Association for Asian American Studies established in 1998, has become a national forum for "advancing the highest professional standard of excellence in teaching and research in the field of Asian American Studies."

UC Berkeley and San Francisco State were the first to establish programs in Asian American Studies. Undergraduate and/or graduate programs in Asian American Studies now exist in almost every major university in the US, including Ivy League universities, small elite liberal arts colleges, and research universities. The accelerated increase in Asian American Studies enrollment is shared by top colleges and universities from Harvard to Stanford, from Pomona to Wellesley, and from the campuses of the University of California to Big Ten universities in the Midwest. Departments of Asian American Studies exist only in UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine (established in 2002), and CSU Northridge. Eight UC campuses offer undergraduate and/or graduate courses in Asian American Studies. The Asian American Studies program at Berkeley is lodged in the Department of Ethnic Studies. Berkeley was the first in the nation to offer a major in Asian American Studies, and began its doctoral program in Ethnic Studies in 1984. San Diego began its doctoral program in Ethnic Studies in 1996. The Department of Asian American Studies offers a major and a minor in Asian American Studies. The newly established Department of Asian American Studies at UCI offers a graduate emphasis, and an undergraduate major and minor in Asian American Studies. The program at UC Davis offers a minor in Asian American Studies. Students at UC Santa Cruz can use Asian American Studies courses to fulfill the American Studies major requirements, and those at UC San Diego and UC Riverside can use such courses to fulfill requirements of the ethnic studies major.

Since 1969, the Asian American Studies Center (Organized Research Unit or ORU) at UCLA has sought to "enrich the experience of the entire university by contributing to an understanding of the long neglected history, rich cultural heritage, and present position of Asian Americans in our society" (Steering Committee to establish the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, 1969). The Center offered the first class in Asian American Studies at UCLA, entitled "Orientals in America" and taught by Yuji Ichioka, in 1969, when less than 10% of the UCLA student body were Asian Americans. In 2002, nearly 40% of the 35,000 UCLA undergraduate and 35% of UCLA graduate students are Asian Americans. As UCLA expects an addition of 4,000 students in the next 10 years, this would translate into additional 1,500 Asian American students if current enrollment trend continues. The Asian American Studies Interdepartmental Degree Program (IDP) now offers an undergraduate BA major, an undergraduate minor, an undergraduate honors program, an MA program, and two joint master programs with the Department of Community Health Sciences in the School of Public Health and with the Department of Social Welfare in the School of Public Policy and Social Research (see Appendices A, B and C).

Interdisciplinary scholarship has from the outset been the cornerstone of Asian American Studies at UCLA, and has been the driving force of its success and growth. The field of Asian American Studies has always embraced interdisciplinarity and benefited immensely from traditional disciplines. While it will continue to use interdisciplinarity as an intellectual point of departure, however, the field holds that Asian American experience cannot be solely understood through the rubric of traditional disciplines.

Interdisciplinary scholarship offers the intellectual equivalent of stereoscopic vision or stereophonic sound - a fuller, more richly textured, and more finely nuanced understanding of the phenomenon (or, in this case, population/community) under study. By using the insights of other disciplines to critique, interrogate, supplement, or complement those offered by a particular traditional discipline with which one is affiliated, the scholar must think more broadly, deeply, and comparatively. The move towards interdisciplinary studies has been one of the most notable trends in American higher education in recent years. Efforts are being made nationwide to create new programs that cross disciplinary boundaries in order to escape the constraints imposed by each individual discipline. It is not a coincidence that some of the newest areas of academic endeavor – women’s studies, environmental studies, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and diaspora studies – are all interdisciplinary. Compared with these fields, Asian American Studies and its sister fields such as African American Studies, Chicano/a Studies, and American Indian Studies are older and somewhat more established from an institutional perspective. At the same time, interdisciplinary scholarship is also a goal many traditional disciplines currently seek to achieve.

When they are in their nascent stage of development, many interdisciplinary fields are in fact only multidisciplinary—that is, each discipline investigates one aspect of a multifaceted topic, and students are required to take a host of courses in different departments that do not necessarily engage one another analytically. Moreover, departments often tend to treat courses on various minority groups as embellishments and place them on the margins of departmental curriculum. By compartmentalizing knowledge about minorities in different departments, students may get a somewhat disjointed view of group experiences. A truly rigorous interdisciplinary program, in contrast, mandates a fundamental reevaluation of the assumptions and perspectives that underlie each discipline, its theoretical constructs, and its methodologies. This kind of interdisciplinary programs where faculty and students participate in critical, interrogative, and intellectual exercise is what the proposed Department of Asian American Studies aims to develop. The intellectual mission of the proposed department includes not only the development of Asian American Studies but also the enhancement of interdisciplinary scholarship in traditional fields. The proposed structure of the new Department, with a significant proportion of its faculty holding split appointments, is one that advances interdisciplinary scholarship and continual interactions with traditional and other interdisciplinary fields (see sections 5.2 and 6.2).

3. Benefits of Asian American Studies and a Department of Asian American Studies

Asian American Studies has made and is making important educational and intellectual contributions to American higher education, both in terms of pedagogy and in terms of research.

The work of Asian American scholars has made valuable contributions to traditional disciplines, in some cases changing them and developing new intellectual endeavors. The interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives at the core of Asian American Studies have added new and innovative ways of framing intellectual questions and reformulating research in traditional disciplines. Indeed, many Asian American scholars thrive in both the field of Asian American Studies and their respective disciplines. For example, a recent MA graduate Kariann Yokota took perspectives on interracial relations that she learned doing her MA thesis on Asian American and African American relations in US history, along with the sophisticated methods she learned in the program, to approach early American history and develop unique and original perspectives. While working on her PhD in History at UCLA, Yokota was hired as an early American historian at Yale. Another example is the work by Professor Min Zhou, who holds a joint appointment in Sociology and Asian American Studies and whose book Growing Up American: How Vietnamese Children Adapt to Life in the United States (Russell Sage Foundation Press, 1998) was named the best book in the field of immigration and received the 1999 Thomas Znaniecki Award from the International Migration Section of American Sociological Association. Recently, Professor Henry Yu has received the 2002 Norris and Carol Hundley Prize for the "most distinguished book on any historical subject" by Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Society for his path-breaking book Thinking Orientals: Migration, Contact, and Exoticism in Modern America (Oxford University Press, 2001). Professor Yu’s book is the first intellectual history of Asian Americans. Professor Bob Nakamura’s documentary film, Toyo Miyatake: Infinite Shades of Gray, offers a penetrating portrait of an immigrant photographer’s search for truth and beauty in a world of impermanence; the film was applauded "an elegant documentary" by the Sundance Film Festival and "eloquent and deeply moving" by the Los Angeles Times and has won numerous awards, including the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Short at the Florida Film Festival (2002), the Gold Award and Aurora Awards (2002), the Worldfest Houston International Film Festival Bronze Award in Arts & Culture (2002), the Telly Awards Bronze Statuette (2002), and the CINE Golden Eagle (2001). These and many other examples show that Asian American scholars and their scholarships have sought to enrich traditional disciplines by using new interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives.

Asian American Studies provides an opportunity for the university to address a rapidly changing society, one that is marked by significant demographic shifts and growth trends in the Asian American population within and across California and in the United States. The field of Asian American Studies is now interdisciplinary and comparative in nature. It is also transnational in terms of teaching, research, and dissemination; publications and curriculum, for example, are being adopted and adapted by scholars in Canada, Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and other parts of Asia and the Americas. The interdisciplinary nature of the field has made it possible to position itself at the intersections of area studies and traditional disciplinary fields, while augmented by teaching and research in professional arenas such as public health, law, social welfare, public policy, urban planning, film and television, library and information studies, and so forth. In this process, Asian American Studies has not only proved itself as a worthy academic endeavor, but has changed and bridged traditional disciplines and area studies. It has been a welcomed infusion to classic concerns of racial and ethnic relations, immigration, literature and cultural studies, and of women, gender, sexuality and the visual and media arts.

Given the increasing visibility and integral roles of Asian Americans in all walks of life in many areas of the United States, all students—and not just those of Asian ancestry—graduating from a good liberal arts college or university should be informed about the history, communities, and cultures of Asian Americans. A Department of Asian American Studies would help students to see and think of Asian Americans as equal rather than second-class citizens and as central rather than marginal actors in society. Students who are interested in acquiring knowledge about the interdisciplinary scholarship of Asian American Studies and in understanding Asian Americans as well as the complexity of the American population would be able to select from a wide range of courses offered in Asian American Studies curriculum not available in traditional departments. Such experience would enable and strengthen an overall multiethnic/multicultural pedagogy.

In addition to gaining information about Asian Americans, students who take Asian American studies courses would learn to perceive themselves and their multiethnic peers from a perspective that values equally people from diverse backgrounds, heritage and cultures. A Department of Asian American Studies would enable students of Asian ancestry to come to terms with their ethnic identities and their relationship to their communities and to society at large. At the same time, courses in Asian American Studies open up new cognitive vistas to non-Asian students who may not be fully aware of the multiethnic complexities of American history and society. A multiethnic/multicultural pedagogy is especially valuable as faculty and students alike are increasingly compelled to address globalization and diversity in their intellectual and professional pursuits.

Since a vast majority of the faculty in Asian American and other ethnic studies programs (up to this point) have been people of color, they serve as an important source of mentorship to students of color. While members of the Asian American Studies faculty provide mentorship to all students of varied racial and ethnic backgrounds, they are often called upon to be role models for Asian American students, who now constitute nearly 40% of the UCLA student body. The proportion of Asian American students at UCLA will continue to increase given the current enrollment trend. Through classes and other forms of interactions, the Asian American Studies faculty can offer academic and other advice to Asian American students.

3.1.6 Helping students to acquire usable skills and a sense of social responsibility

Since its founding, the Asian American Studies teaching program at UCLA has placed great emphasis on training students to be of service to both their communities and to the larger society. Asian American Studies has always recognized and, wherever resources permitted, tried to develop students’ language skills, both in English and in Asian languages. The Asian American Studies curriculum aims to encourage students to learn to become bi- or multi-lingual—a valuable language skill that enables future scholars to do better research and future social service providers to offer more culturally sensitive services. The curriculum also includes service-learning and experiential-education courses, encouraging students to think critically not only about the world around them but also about how knowledge of that world is generated, validated, or debunked and engaging them in the real world to acquire practical skills, e.g., funding proposal writing, project management, and program implementation. Members of the Asian American Studies faculty are very concerned about doing research in a socially responsible way. For example, faculty members ask themselves and teach their students to ask such questions as: For whom and for what purpose is this research being done? Who will benefit, in what ways, from the findings? Asian American and non-Asian American students alike are challenged to link their academic pursuits and skills to serving the community and the society at large. Asian American Studies at UCLA has provided an impetus for pedagogy based upon community field studies, service-learning, and experiential educational approaches together with new technological and electronic learning that enable students to seek new frontiers in their education.

The existing BA and MA programs in Asian American Studies at UCLA provide training for students for possible pursuits of graduate study and professional training. Students graduating with a BA degree in Asian American Studies are prepared for graduate study, including doctoral study, in a variety of humanities and social science disciplines—particularly American studies, literature, history, ethnic studies, psychology, anthropology, and sociology. Students in Asian American Studies are also prepared for professional training in business administration and management, city and regional planning, counseling, education, law, library and information studies, public health, and social welfare. About half of the MA graduates from the Asian American Studies program at UCLA went on to pursue doctoral training; and other graduates have become active and recognized leaders in a number of public and community agencies and institutes (see section 4.1 and Appendix A). Many undergraduate alumni of the program have taken on leadership roles in the most significant and influential community-based organizations such as the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, the Chinatown Service Center, and the Japanese American Museum. Prominent local and national leaders, including Judy Chu, current member of the California State Assembly and former Mayor of Monterey Park, California; Stewart Kwoh, recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" award; Angela Oh, former member of President Clinton's Advisory Commission on Race; and Dolly Gee, nominee to the U.S. Federal Court by former President Bill Clinton, are products of the undergraduate program.

The 2000 Census confirms demographers’ expectation that no one racial or ethnic group can claim a majority in California. Southern California, in particular, is increasingly multiethnic. Latinos make up about 46% of Los Angeles, with Whites at 32%, Blacks 12% and Asians 12%. More than 4 million persons of Asian ancestry, representing about 40% of all such persons in the United States, live in California today. In Southern California and statewide, the growth of Asian Americans outpaced every other ethnic group. The rapid growth of the Asian American population—in Los Angeles, the state of California, and the country—has put academics within Asian American Studies center stage with the media and communities alike.

Given this demographic reality, students graduating with an interdisciplinary knowledge of Asian Americans, as well as with knowledge about other ethnic groups, will be well prepared for employment in many occupations: business and management, education, social services, the health professions, law, high-tech industries, and other lines of work that involve interaction with co-workers and clients from diverse origins. Their well-rounded substantive knowledge of Asian Americans and other minorities, their awareness of the rewards, challenges, tensions, and problems of living in a multiethnic society, their sensitivity to cultural differences, their analytical skills, and their computer and media literacy are all valued by employers serving a multiethnic clientele. Those students who know two or more languages are in even greater demand. Furthermore, students graduating with an MA in Asian American Studies are hotly pursued by both teaching and community-based organizations. The establishment of and plans to establish joint master degree programs between Asian American Studies and other departments at UCLA further prepare students to combine their professional skills with knowledge of the Asian American community specifically and of a diverse society broadly. Joint master degree programs with the Department of Social Welfare and the Department of Community Health Services have already been established and enrolled graduate students; the proposal for a joint master program with the Department of Information Studies is pending upon final approval; and other joint master degree progress with the School of Law and the Department of Urban Planning are also being planned (see section 6.4.6).

Asian American Studies have made important intellectual contributions to the social sciences, both in terms of new empirical findings and in terms of theory-building. Asian American social science scholarship is beginning to make an impact on the study of such subjects as: 1) US history; 2) the restructuring of the world economy; 3) contemporary immigration into the United States; 4) changing patterns of race and ethnic relations; 5) the impact of demographic changes on American politics at the local, state, and national levels; 6) the influence of family dynamics, cultural values, and social support systems on personality, identity development, and community building; and 7) the interplay of micro and macro cultural developments within historical, institutional, and symbolic arenas.

While the new field of cultural studies embraces both the social sciences and the humanities, the more traditional approaches to the humanities can also gain from bringing Asian American Studies into their fold. Asian American Studies faculty at UCLA has, during the past 30 years, been at the forefront of developing the canon and corpus of Asian American literature—both the creation of original works of literature, and the scholarly analysis and study of literary works from the 19th century to the present. A strong core faculty in Asian American Literature includes King-Kok Cheung, Jinqi Ling, Shu-mei Shih, Rachael Lee, David Wong Louie, and Russell C. Leong. These faculty members alone have written five major critical works on Asian American literature during the past decade published by Cornell, U.C. Press, Oxford, the University of Washington, and Cambridge University Press. Moreover, national award-winning novels, poetry and short story collections by some of the Asian American Studies faculty (Louie and Leong) have enhanced UCLA’s reputation as a creative of works in the field of Asian American literature.

At the same time, media, cultural, and gender studies in relation to Asian Americans help to define exciting new arenas of scholarship. The UCLA Asian American Studies Center published the first book on Asian American film and media (Moving the Image) in 1991 and the first book on sexual diversity and gender (Asian American Sexualities) in 1993, and both books are widely used as textbooks. In media, the Center for EthnoCommunications, directed by Robert Nakamura of Asian American Studies and the Department of Film and Television has produced innovative tri-lingual educational documentaries now utilized in classes throughout California. Students and younger scholars of Asian American Studies increasingly expect sophisticated courses in Asian American art, art history, and media, in addition to courses in theater and the performing arts. Asian American Studies programs across the country now offer such courses, including NYU, UC Irvine, UC Berkeley, and the CSU college system.

UCLA has historically been at the forefront of developing new areas of scholarship in Asian American Studies. Its campus strengths in Asian American literature, art history, and its Asian American archives connected with the Charles Young Research Library, combined with off-campus resources such as Asian American artists and community-based arts and media groups in Southern California, make UCLA ideally situated to expand its programs in the areas of literary, media, and cultural studies.

As in the humanities and social sciences, Asian American Studies has enriched and been enriched by professional education and training at UCLA. Looking to prepare their graduates for diverse work place environments and client populations, professional schools have increasingly incorporated the pedagogical activities of Asian American Studies and other ethnic studies programs. Research on Asian American communities has informed practice in the areas of social work, library and information studies, film and television, public policy, public health, education and law. Consequently, relationships with professional schools and their subsequent pedagogical approaches and research methodologies have helped develop an applied dimension of Asian American Studies that emphasizes community service and accountability, both fundamental principles during the founding of the field.

Much of this synergy flows from the IDP’s joint master degree programs with the Department of Community Health Sciences in the School of Public Health and with the Department of Social Welfare in the School of Public Policy and Social Research. In addition, cross-listed courses in Urban Planning, for example, allow undergraduate and graduate students to develop statistical and spatial analysis skills and apply them to research on Asian American communities. This has resulted in numerous publications, impacted local and national social and economic policy, and has trained dozens of students to work in community development, public policy and social work professions. Similar courses in the IDP’s "EthnoCommunications" course series have allowed students to merge ethnic studies content with the newest media technologies to develop documentary works with Asian American and immigrant themes. This has also produced a pool of professionals who have gone on to enrich and challenge mainstream media and entertainment production houses, as well as develop alternative media institutions and projects. Currently, a proposal to develop another joint master program with Information Studies is pending upon final approval by the Graduate Council. In the future, we plan to expand joint master degree programs with Urban Planning/Public Policy, Education, and Law. An undergraduate minor in EthnoCommunications is also being planned.

The Asian American Studies IDP at UCLA was formally established within the College of Letters and Sciences in Fall 1976. The program’s goals were to enhance and infuse the UCLA curriculum with an interdisciplinary understanding of the Asian American experience, promote scholarly research on Asian Americans in the United States, provide academic and leadership training to individuals interested in working in Asian American communities, and prepare students for advanced training or doctoral studies in the humanities, social sciences, and professional school disciplines. As of today, the Asian American Studies IDP has an MA program and two joint master programs, a BA program, an undergraduate minor program, and an undergraduate honors program, which are supervised by an interdepartmental faculty advisory committee.

The MA program in Asian American Studies was established in 1972 by the Asian American Studies Center to foster two main goals: scholarship and community service. The program’s academic goal is to provide advanced training to students who have sought a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary graduate level foundation in the "state of the art" in the field of Asian American Studies in preparation for doctoral studies in the humanities, social sciences, or professional schools disciplines. The program also has a commitment to educating students who intend to work within or in relation to Asian American communities, in social services agencies, museums, or media groups, or to teach ethnic studies courses at secondary and community college levels. In addition, the program attracts students who have subsequently pursued professional degrees, as well as those from abroad (see also Appendices B, C, D, and E).

The graduate program in Asian American Studies confers an MA degree upon completion of (a) eleven graduate or upper division courses and (b) a comprehensive examination or a thesis. At least seven of the minimum eleven courses must be graduate level and focus on Asian American Studies topics. The normative time to degree for the MA is two years. Course requirements are organized into three categories. The first category consists of three core classes, namely, AAS200A (Asian American History), AAS200B (Critical Issues in Contemporary Asian American Communities), and AAS200C (Critical Issues in Asian American Studies). The three consecutive seminars entail a critical review of the literature on Asian Americans in the United States, an in-depth examination of community issues, and the development of alternative frameworks and hypotheses. All graduate students are required to satisfactorily complete the sequence. The second category of courses constitutes the program's breadth requirement, and involves graduate-level seminars (beyond the core 200A-C series) in Asian American Studies, as well as graduate courses in other departments taught by program faculty. The third category of courses comprises classes in the specialty area chosen by the student and approved by the thesis or examination committee. Two of these courses may be independent study courses (AAS500 series). Graduate students are also required to either pass a proficiency exam in one Asian language or to complete three upper-division or graduate courses on research methods (see Appendix E).

In addition to coursework, MA students are required to complete either a comprehensive examination (in the form of a written comprehensive exam or a creative project) or an MA thesis (with the option of a field research thesis). The vast majority of students have pursued to write an MA thesis. About one-third of the theses completed during the past ten years or so dealt with historical subjects, and the rest contemporary issues. Many were pioneering works in previously unexplored terrain for the field of Asian American Studies and have subsequently been used and cited by other scholars. A number of theses have served as the foundation for refereed articles, creative projects and public policy reports, and several have received academic accolades.

In addition, the MA program has diversified to offer joint graduate degrees with the Department of Community Health Sciences in the School of Public Health (since Winter 1998) and with the Department of Social Welfare in the School of Public Policy and Social Research (since Fall 2000). The joint master program with the Department of Information Studies in the Graduate School of Education, which is pending for final approval, is expected to accept applications soon (see Appendices B and C).

Between the 1988-89 and 2001-2002 academic years, the MA program graduated approximately 90 students. Since the mid-1990s, about 10-12 new students have enrolled in the MA program each year (see Appendix E). Graduates of the program have been actively pursued by highly ranked PhD programs at many of the nation’s finest public and private institutions, including Brown, Yale, Stanford, Berkeley, Chicago, Michigan, MIT, Columbia, and UCLA. More than half of the MA graduates have pursued doctoral studies; many have gained faculty appointments upon completion of their doctoral degrees and are becoming leading scholars in a range of fields, including Asian American Studies. Other graduates have become active and recognized leaders in a number of Asian American community-based organizations, civil rights groups, and museums, as well as in labor unions, media organizations, and government agencies.

The first class in Asian American Studies at UCLA was offered by the Asian American Studies Center in 1969. In 1988 the IDP started offering an undergraduate specialization that would form the basis for a BA degree program. The BA degree program took off in the 1994-1995 academic year. Starting with 14 majors in 1994-1995, enrollment in the BA program grew to 159 majors in Winter 2001 (see Appendix D). Currently, there are 151 majors as September 2002 and the number is expected to group in the Winter and Spring quarters.

The Asian American Studies Minor was established in Winter 1998 to replace the undergraduate specialization, and an Asian American Studies honors program was approved in Winter 2000. The undergraduate programs in Asian American Studies are intended to offer a coherent and comprehensive undergraduate curriculum, with the primary goal of communicating the experiences of Asians and Pacific Islanders as an American ethnic group. There are three specific objectives. First, the program addresses the hitherto neglected aspects of the cultural, historical, political, and social experiences of Asian Pacific Americans, thereby broadening the curriculum at UCLA to reflect the conditions of Asians and other ethnic groups. Second, the program serves to prepare students for advanced degrees in Asian American Studies, ethnic studies, or other disciplines as well as in professional schools. Third, the program aims at preparing students for positions of service and leadership in Asian American communities.

The BA in Asian American Studies requires a total of 13 upper division courses and one lower division course, including the core courses AAS10 (History of Asians in America) and AAS20 (Contemporary Asian American Communities), one research methods course, two Asian American theme courses, two courses focusing on an Asian Pacific American ethnic specific group, two ethnic/race/gender relations courses, two courses on the history/culture/social or political institutions of Asia, and three elective courses selected from Asian American Studies or the approved list of interdepartmental courses. At least seven of the courses taken for the major must be from the approved list of interdepartmental courses. Students must also demonstrate proficiency equivalent to the completion of a one-year course of study in an Asian language prior to graduation. No more than eight units of course AAS199 (independent studies) may be applied toward the major.

Seven courses are required for the minor in Asian American Studies. The requirement includes the two core courses AAS10 and AAS20, one Asian American theme course, one course focusing on an Asian Pacific American ethnic specific group, and three elective courses selected from Asian American Studies or the approved list of interdepartmental courses. No more than four units in the 199 series may be applied toward the minor.

Students who have enrolled in or pursued undergraduate degrees in Asian American Studies have been highly visible and respected leaders and participants in a wide range of campus programs and activities from student government to student publications. They have also contributed to the research and publications agenda of the Asian American Studies Center. In addition, the current generation of Asian American Studies undergraduate students have maintained an extraordinary, three-decade tradition of forging linkages between the UCLA campus and the rapidly growing and diverse communities of the Asian Pacific American population of Southern California. They have done so through field internships, service-learning, joint projects, volunteer activities, and publications in both long-established and recently developed communities in the region. Many of the most significant and influential community-based organizations like the Asian Pacific American Legal Center and the Chinatown Service Center were founded by UCLA alumni who were involved in Asian American Studies while they were undergraduates (see Appendix F).

The Asian American Studies IDP is supervised by an IDP Advisory Committee, which consists of 21 faculty members. Fourteen Advisory Committee members currently hold joint appointments with the IDP, whom are diverse in their research and teaching interests. Some highlights of faculty research include: Pauline Agbayani-Siewert on Filipino Americans and mental health, King-Kok Cheung and Jinqi Ling on Asian American Literature, Shu-mei Shih on Asian immigrant literature, David Wong Louie on Asian American creative writing, Valerie Matsumoto on the history of Japanese Americans and Asian American women, Henry Yu on intellectual history and the history of knowledge, Robert Nakamura on ethnocommunications, Don Nakanishi on Asian American politics and education, Paul Ong on regional economies and the labor market, Kyeyoung Park on Korean immigrants and intergroup relations, Marjorie Kagawa-Singer on Asian American health issues, Thu-Huong Nguyen-Vo on Vietnam and Vietnamese Americans, and Min Zhou on immigration and immigrant children. These faculty members form the core of the IDP, offering a variety of Asian American Studies courses each year and providing academic advising to students (see Appendix G).

Members of the Asian American Studies faculty who do not hold joint appointments but are affiliated with and actively involved in the IDP or the Asian American Studies Center are also prominent researchers on Asian American issues and teach Asian American relevant classes for the graduate and undergraduate programs. Among their teaching and research specialties are: access to health care in multi-cultural populations (Roshan Bastani); ethnicity and medical care (Emil Berkanovic); Asian migration and global development (Lucie Cheng); higher education and organizational change (Mitchell Chang); multicultural library and information services (Clara Chu); ethnicity in the American city and internal migration in China (Cindy Fan); law (Gaurang Mitu Gulati); medicine (Nancy Harada); race, gender and public policy (Shirley Hune); history of Japanese Americans (Yuji Ichioka); Asian Americans and the law (Jerry Kang); health promotion and health education (Snehendu Kar); Japanese Americans (Harry Kitano); politics of knowledge, postcolonial theory, and the politics of culture (Vinay Lal); women's study and Asian American literature (Rachel Lee); literature (Russell Leong); ethnicity and aging (James Lubben); medicine (Takashi Mikinodan); Korean American women and elderly (Ailee Moon); Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences (Kazuo Nihira), Japanese organization and management (William Ouchi); South Asian Islamic musical cultures (Lorraine Sakata); public health (Ninez Ponce); US-Philippines relations (Michael Salman); Chinese law and government (James Tong); schizophrenia and Asian American mental health (Cindy Yee-Bradbury); and arts and architecture (Hiromi Lorraine Sakata).

Many IDP faculty members have been nationally, internationally, and professionally recognized for their achievements in scholarship, teaching, leadership, and community service, and have received prestigious prizes, fellowships, and funding for their work. At the same time, they have been effective and dedicated teachers in the program. The quality of the program’s classes has been almost always consistently high. Positive feedback from students reflects not only the professional skills of the faculty, but also their ability to integrate research and community service experiences with class materials. In addition, faculty members have played important roles in nurturing student interests in Asian American issues in their host departments, attracting students from traditional disciplines to take classes or enter the MA program in Asian American Studies, and facilitating our MA graduates to pursue PhD degrees in related fields.

Since the late 1980s the IDP has significantly expanded, matured, and diversified. In the context of rapid growth of the Asian American population in the nation, in California and in Los Angeles, the IDP seeks to meet the diverse educational needs of these communities as well as the growing interest within the UCLA community and general public to learn more about the Asian American experience. Three of the most significant developments of the IDP are the substantial increase in the number of faculty in and affiliated with the program, the establishment of new degree programs, and the rapid growth of the Asian American Studies major and Asian American Studies classes. Currently, 41 tenured and tenure-track faculty members serve on the Asian American Studies Center Faculty Advisory Committee, most of whom teach various Asian American-related courses. The current IDP Committee consists of 21 faculty members (20 with tenure) actively teaching classes, advising students and doing research on Asian Americans. Since the mid-1990s, the IDP has established an undergraduate major in 1994-95, an undergraduate minor in 1998-99, an undergraduate honor program in 2000-01, and two joint master degree programs with the Department of Community Health (1998-99) and with the Department of Social Welfare (2000-01). The joint master program with the Department of Information Studies is pending for final approval.

The IDP currently has 151 undergraduate majors, 47 undergraduate minors, and 26 MA students enrolled in the program as of September 2002, and annually offers about 60 undergraduate and graduate classes with enrollments of more than 1,500 students. With the expected growth in overall enrollment at UCLA in which Asian American students are likely to be disproportionately represented, the demand for Asian American Studies course offerings will be exceptionally high.

In short, the UCLA Asian American Studies IDP is the premier program of its kind in the nation and has been regarded as the innovator and standard bearer in the field for more than 25 years. Its current number and quality of faculty, breadth of interdisciplinary teaching and research activities and the accomplishments of its graduates are unrivaled by any other program. Until recently (San Francisco State University began its MA program in Asian American Studies in 2000), UCLA remains the only university in the country to offer both graduate and undergraduate degree programs exclusively in Asian American Studies.

During the past six years the faculty, students, and staff of Asian American Studies at UCLA have held numerous discussions and meetings to discuss and debate the prospect of departmentalization. In this regard, the proposal for departmentalization is a culmination of views and sentiment expressed over half a decade representing a significant segment of the UCLA community. In addition, recent reviews of the Asian American Studies IDP and ORU (the five-year review of the Asian American Studies Center in 1996-1997, the Academic Senate review of the IDP in 1999-2000, and the 15-year review of the Asian American Studies Center in 2000-2001) have all recommended departmentalization of the IDP. On February 14, 2002, the IDP faculty unanimously voted in favor of departmentalization (votes at faculty meeting: 17 yes, 0 no, 0 abstain; absentee votes: 6 yes, 0 no, 0 abstain) (see Appendix H).

The IDP model served well the beginning and initial growth of Asian American Studies at UCLA, as its hallmark is its interdepartmental arrangement that brings together scholars from different departments and disciplines. However, as the field multiplies and matures and as the program increasingly takes on the functions of a department, the intellectual and academic mission of Asian American Studies outgrows the IDP model and must gain departmental status in order to accommodate growth. Pedagogically, intellectually, and practically, a Department of Asian American Studies would help students and scholars to see and think of Asian Americans as central, rather than marginal, actors in society, and to recognize Asian American Studies as an established field of interdisciplinary inquiry. Faculty and students in Asian American Studies would have access to a central departmental home.

The Department of Asian American Studies that is proposed here would build on the IDP’s academic and faculty strengths. First, the several degree programs currently offered by the IDP – the BA, MA, the two joint master degrees, and the undergraduate minor – would continue to constitute the academic structure of the proposed department. Departmentalization does not change the program’s existing academic structure. However, with departmentalization Asian American Studies would be in a better position to improve existing academic programs and develop new programs. Second, in terms of faculty commitments, departmentalization formalizes the joint appointment of faculty currently teaching classes in Asian American Studies (Appendix I).

While much of what is required for departmentalization is in place, we do need to secure funding for future faculty FTEs and space. These needs are detailed in sections 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 6.2, 6.3 and 6.6 of the proposal. Departmentalization would enable the Asian American Studies program to overcome a number of existing and future constraints imposed by the IDP model, which are highlighted below.

The field of Asian American Studies is rapidly growing. Many degree-granting programs and departments of Asian American Studies or Ethnic Studies have appeared in prestigious institutions and four-year colleges across the nation. The Asian American Studies programs at UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine, and CSUN have become full-fledged departments. Recently San Francisco State University began to offer an MA program in Asian American Studies and has become a third site of graduate training in Asian American Studies, together with the Department of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley and UCLA. As Asian American Studies departments and programs across the country have grown and developed, UCLA has continued to maintain its leadership position in the field because of the extraordinary success and commitment of faculty, staff, and students and the local and national support it receives from academic, philanthropic, and community-based institutions.

The Asian American Studies IDP’s continued leadership in the field, however, is best facilitated by its transition to a permanent academic department. Professor Ketu Katrak, external reviewer for the 1999-2000 Academic Senate review of the IDP, warns of "a declining reputation in terms of problems with faculty retention, low morale, and declining scholarly productivity" if the IDP maintains its current structure (see Appendix J). We agree with the 1999-2000 Academic Senate review’s analysis that not having its own FTE is constraining the future growth of the program, student advising, faculty recruitment and retention, and efforts toward curriculum development. We also find the experience of Professor Katrak very useful – the FTEs held by the Asian American Studies program at UCI have been an important factor of its rapidly growing reputation since its establishment in 1991 (and the AAS program at UCI became a department in early 2002). Thus, departmentalization is the next logical step in the IDP’s development and is necessary for maintaining its preeminence in the field and ensuring its continued growth and excellence in teaching, research, and the ability to attract the finest scholars.

The Asian American Studies IDP’s growth is largely attributable to a large number of committed faculty members. Its participants range from those with joint appointments to those who are affiliated because their interests in research and teaching are related to Asian Americans. The active involvement by faculty from at least more than 20 departments in the College of Letters and Science and professional schools exemplifies the interdisciplinary strength of the IDP (see Appendix I).

As an IDP, the program does not have its own FTEs. But in the past two decades, the Asian American Studies Center has obtained or negotiated a total of 16 joint FTEs from the Chancellor's Office and the College, including institutional 6 FTEs allocated by the Chancellor's Office since the mid-1970s to the four ethnic studies centers and additional FTEs Professor Don Nakanishi negotiated when he became Center Director in 1990 (nine in the social sciences, life sciences and humanities from then College Provost Ray Orbach, and one for a professional school from the Chancellor's Office). These tenure-track appointments require the individuals to teach half of his/her courses in the Asian American Studies IDP. By 1987, six FTEs were filled, by Professors Robert Nakamura (Film and Television), Don Nakanishi (Education), Paul Ong (Urban Planning), Stanley Sue (Psychology, left UCLA), King-Kok Cheung (English), and Valerie Matsumoto (History). All of these professors have gained tenure and five are full professors (Cheung, Nakamura, Nakanishi, Ong, and Sue). All have assumed leadership roles in the IDP, and Nakanishi and Ong have served as IDP Chair and Matsumoto is currently IDP Vice-Chair.

One of the most extraordinary developments of the program during the past decade is the success in recruiting faculty to fill 2 joint FTEs in professional schools, including Pauline Agbayani-Siewert (Social Welfare) and Marjorie Kagawa-Singer (Public Health), and 7 joint FTEs in the College, including Wei-Yin Hu (Economics), Jinqi Ling, (English), David Wong Louie (English), Kyeyoung Park (Anthropology), Shu-mei Shih (East Asian Languages and Cultures/Comparative Literature), Cindy Yee-Bradbury (Psychology), Henry Yu (History), and Min Zhou (Sociology). All (except Hu who left UCLA) have now received tenure, and Professor Zhou has been promoted to full professor. Since 1999-2000 the Center and IDP have negotiated splitting an FTE originally intended for an Art History appointment into two three-way split tenure-track assistant professor appointments—a Vietnam/Vietnamese American Studies specialist, which has been filled by Professor Thu-Huong Nguyen-Vo, with the Center for Southeast Asian Studies and the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, and a Philippines/Filipino American Studies specialist, an ongoing joint search with the Center for Southeast Asian Studies and the Department of English. The AAS Center and the IDP have been keenly interested in the professional development of individual faculty members, through research grants and other resources to support faculty from a variety of extramural grants, endowments and special funds that the Center administers.

The success in recruitment, and active outreach efforts to existing UCLA professors interested in Asian American Studies, have resulted in a program faculty drawn from a diverse cross-section of disciplines. These individuals are highly committed to the program and have contributed an extraordinary amount of time and energy to the administration of the program, which has been the key to its growth and expansion. They have served to fulfill the mission of "enrich[ing] the experience of the entire university" by infusing UCLA curricula and scholarly agendas with Asian American Studies expertise. Recruitment and outreach have led to critical masses for the development of innovative teaching and research endeavors in Asian American literature (Cheung, Ling, Wong, Shih, and Lee), along disciplinary lines (e.g., five historians), as well as multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary areas of inquiry (e.g., public policy, research on Asian American elderly, etc.). There is no question that the Asian American Studies faculty represents one of the most significant and enduring institutional bridges between the IDP and the Asian American Studies Center on one hand, and between the IDP and departments and professional schools at UCLA on the other.

However, the IDP institutional arrangement is at the expense of the extraordinary voluntarism and professional and moral commitments of the Asian American Studies faculty. Faculty currently affiliated with the IDP serve two, and at times, three units – this is excessively demanding in terms of their time and resources. They participate in the IDP not only because of intellectual, professional, and transnational linkages to the Asian American Studies field, but they also have a moral commitment and investment in the growth of the field. However, their teaching, service and student advising in the IDP often remain invisible and underrewarded in their home departments. The IDP, in recognition of the serious scholarly and pedagogical contributions of its faculty, has taken on extensive work on personnel reviews, which ironically also increases the workload of its faculty. Steps that have been taken or are going to be taken related to the Academic Senate review’s recommendations, including offering more classes, increasing student advisement, and appointment of a Faculty Undergraduate Advisor, will certainly place greater demand on the overworked faculty. The double or triple roles would create an unduly heavy burden especially for junior faculty, who joggle own career development and committee work and other responsibilities at two or more units.

There is no compelling reason that interdisciplinary scholarship requires faculty sacrifices. Departmentalization would provide greater FTE flexibility that can alleviate the difficult situations facing Asian American Studies faculty.

First, a Department of Asian American Studies would have its full-time FTEs in the long run (see also section 6.2), which would greatly facilitate the appointment of faculty to administrative positions and the formation of a core faculty fully committed to Asian American Studies without having to worry about demands from other units. This is especially important since the size and variety of activities of the IDP are already commensurate with a mid-sized department, and as future growth of the program involves possible additions of degree programs (e.g., joint master degree programs with Library and Information Studies, law, education, and Urban Planning, and PhD in Asian American Studies).

Second, departmentalization would allow some faculty to move a greater percentage or all of their FTE to the Department of Asian American Studies. Though this may not occur immediately, this option would in time create a pool of faculty that would be more closely accountable to Asian American Studies, allow for the development of more equal and regular service participation, and strengthen the administrative operations of the teaching program.

Third, by making its own appointments, the new Department would be able to make the best decisions for the development of the field. While the new Department would continue to collaborate with other campus units to make joint or split appointments in areas of interest involving multiple units, the option of making its own appointments ensures that the program can prioritize its own curriculum needs in faculty searches.

Finally, departmentalization would strengthen the program’s participation in the system of personnel reviews by making it a true partner with other departments in the process.

The departmental model proposed here is one that gives the program maximum FTE flexibility while at the same time retaining the advantages of an IDP. Specifically, we envision a department with some full-time FTEs but with the majority of faculty holding split appointment, at least in the next 3-5 years, with other departments (see also section 6.2 and Appendix I). This structure would allow the interdisciplinary program to thrive on a stronger institutional arrangement while maintaining its ties with traditional disciplines. Faculty who hold full-time FTE in Asian American Studies would not detract from the fundamentally interdisciplinary work in Asian American Studies; in fact, they would be encouraged to have formal affiliations (such as 0% appointments) with traditional departments. Faculty who hold split FTE (e.g., 75%, 50%, or 25%) would teach in Asian American Studies and other departments, and by doing so would continue to enrich the curricula in traditional departments with materials on Asian Americans. Faculty who hold 0% appointments in Asian American Studies would serve as mentors to graduate students and as important academic and institutional bridges with other academic units. This flexible FTE structure would also prevent disciplinary isolation, a concern held by those skeptical about departmentalization of IDPs. In short, departmentalization with a combination of full-time FTEs, split appointments, and 0% appointments offers a win-win resolution. This is the model that recently established Departments of Statistics and Comparative Literature have adopted, and is one recommended by the Fifteen-Year Review Committee for UCLA Asian American Studies Center:

The size of the Asian American Studies program, in terms of faculty, number of majors, courses, enrollment, and degree programs, is already bigger than many other departments at UCLA. The IDP annually offers more than 60 classes with an enrollment of more than 1,500 students. The number of undergraduate majors has increased every year. The program currently has an MA, a BA, a minor, an honors program, and two joint master degree programs. In many respects, the IDP is already performing almost all the academic functions of a department.

In terms of faculty personnel actions, the IDP also functions like a department. The IDP participates fully in personnel actions of affiliated faculty members, including reviews by ad hoc committees, full review reports, faculty discussion and votes, and faculty representation in campus review committees. In 1999-2000 the tenure and promotion cases the IDP fully reviewed numbered a staggering 10.

It is important to note, however, that the IDP was able to perform well with the support of the Asian American Studies Center and a highly committed faculty and their voluntarism. The Academic Senate report of the IDP’s recent review notes that the program’s needs for permanent faculty FTEs, permanent administrative staff, space, and increased permanent operating funds are the key for ensuring the continuation of its demonstrated success and growth. Professor Gordon Chang of Stanford University, one of the external reviewers, likens the current situation to a crisis. As Professor Ketu Katrak comments, "the IDP structure is bursting at the seams" and the University’s "commitment for resources would demonstrate that the administration recognizes the substantial educational benefits that this IDP provides to UCLA as a whole – given the high standing of Asian American Studies as a scholarly field, and given the high student interest in Asian American Studies at UCLA." The recent Academic Senate review recommends that any effective solutions and long-term planning must address the structural issues, which entail not only commitments from the Dean but also from the University administration, in consultation with the faculty, students and staff in Asian American Studies. To fully address that review’s programmatic recommendations, including offering more graduate classes, expanding the curriculum on community-based field studies, and increasing faculty advisement for undergraduate and graduate students, and to develop new joint master degree programs and possibly a PhD program, the IDP must function like a regular development in every way. Departmentalization would ensure that the program is able to address these needs and to continue to grow.

Until 2000-2001, the IDP received a meager commitment of $7,000 permanent funding per year from the Division of Social Sciences. The Asian American Studies Center estimated that between the 1991-92 and 1998-99 academic years it devoted $700,000 in staff time, supplies and equipment, and other expenses, as well as office spaces, to the administration of the IDP’s undergraduate and graduate programs. During 2000-2001 Chancellor Carnesale has provided a significant augmentation of permanent funding to the ethnic studies programs, and from this augmentation Dean Scott Waugh has allocated additional $168,000 to the Asian American Studies IDP. This allocation brings the funding level of the Asian American Studies program closer to that of other Social Sciences departments with similar enrollments, and would significantly facilitate the departmentalization of the program (see also Appendix K).

As both the IDP’s self-review and the Academic Senate review point out, graduate funding the Asian American Studies IDP receives is extremely limited (see also Appendices A and J). TA funding for the IDP is less than a fraction of what regular departments of similar size and enrollment receive. Significant increase in TA positions is needed for improving MA time-to-degree and for addressing Academic Senate’s recommendations for curriculum development. The review raises concerns over large lecture classes without TAs and of core required courses that had to be capped because of insufficient TA funds. Professor Gordon Chang comments "Improved funding for teaching assistants and staff support appear to be essential. Without these, I fear demoralization and a decline in curriculum quality, not to speak of missing an opportunity to build upon demonstrated success." Professor Katrak’s comment that "Better resources on this front would enable the unit to recruit the best students from across the US, as well as facilitating the time-to-degree issue facing the MA students given minimal funding options" summarizes most succinctly the issue of graduate funding. With departmentalization we hope that graduate and TA funding would be allocated based on enrollment and on a par with other regular departments.

The proposed Department of Asian American Studies seeks to enrich the undergraduate and graduate education at UCLA by promoting excellence in interdisciplinary instruction and scholarship on Asian American history, cultures, and community. The department aims at providing students with the theoretical, methodological, and practical skills needed to be successful in teaching, research, and/or community work in a multitethnic, multicultural, and diverse society; exposing students to a breadth of knowledge in the field of Asian American Studies so that they can become active thinkers, critics, and practitioners in society; and enabling students to develop in-depth expertise in one or more areas of specialization, thereby ensuring that they can make contribution to original research, service, and leadership to the community in California in particular and to the nation at large. Through the above, the proposed department also aims at building on the preeminence of UCLA in Asian American Studies so that the university would continue to be the national locus and leader of this field.

As discussed earlier (see section 5.2), the faculty composition model that best suits and reflects the strength of Asian American Studies as an interdisciplinary field is one where some faculty hold 100% FTE while a large number of faculty hold split (25% to 75%) or joint appointments (0%). This flexible structure enables the faculty to continue their bridging roles between Asian American Studies and other departments, and is conducive to ensuring an interdisciplinary pedagogy and research in the proposed department (see also Appendices G and I).

We envision that in about five years’ time the department would have five faculty holding 100% FTEs. These five FTEs would consist of faculty who currently hold joint appointments and wish to be 100% in the proposed Department of Asian American Studies in the future and new full-time appointments. At present, one tenured faculty member has committed 100% of his FTE to the proposed new department (Nakamura); 11 tenured faculty members have committed 50% of their FTEs to the proposed new department (Agbayani-Siewert, Cheung, Kagawa-Singer, Ling, Louie, Matsumoto, Nakanishi, Ong, Park, Yu, and Zhou; see Appendix I). Dean Scott Waugh has committed 3-4 full-time FTEs to the new AAS department. In addition, 18 tenured faculty members have expressed interest in holding 0% appointments with the new department (Roshan Bastani, Emil Berkonovic, Clara Chu, Cindy Fan, Shirley Hune, Jerry Kang, Snehendu Kar, Vinay Lal, Rachel Lee, Jim Lubben, Takeshi Makinodan, Ailee Moon, Lorraine Sakata, William Ouchi, Michael Salman, Shu-mei Shih, James Tong, and Cindy Yee-Bradbury) in the proposed new department (see Appendix I).

Upon tenure, tenure-track assistant professors who currently hold joint appointments or are affiliated with Asian American Studies may choose to shift a portion of their FTE into the proposed department. Assistant Professor Thu-Huong Nguyen-Vo, who holds a joint appointment with the IDP, teaches two courses in Asian American Studies. Another tenure-track assistant professor whom we are in the process of recruiting this fall, will have a joint appointment with the IDP, plus another possible tenure-track FTE for the replacement Wei Hu. In addition, Assistant Professors Mitch Chang and Ninez Ponce have taught courses or are developing courses for Asian American Studies. Upon tenure, these faculty members may choose to have part of their FTE in the new department.

Therefore, the Department of Asian American Studies would start with a total of 15 FTEs: 7 institutional FTEs originally held by the Asian American Studies Center— Agbayani-Siewert, Cheung, Kakawa-Singer, Matsumoto, Nakamura, Nakanishi, Ong (Nakamura will hold 100% FTE, and all others will hold 50%-50% split appointments with departments); 3 existing 50%-50% split FTEs—Ling, Louie, Park, Yu, Zhou, and Hu’s replacement; 3 100% growth FTEs; and 2 spilt future FTEs—Chang (25%), Nguyen-Vo (50%), Ponce (25%), Hune (50%), and Shih (25%). All faculty members who wish to have split appointments have been teaching a number of core, required, as well as electives courses in the Asian American Studies IDP and would continue to do the same in the proposed department. This core faculty resource would ensure that the existing curriculum and departmental duties are carried out smoothly and effectively. Along with the actively involvement of 18 tenured faculty members holding 0% appointments, 3 professors emeriti (Lucie Cheng, Harry Kitano, and Kazuo Nihira), and 2 adjunct professors (Russell Leong, and Nancy Harada), the faculty base for the proposed department in terms of teaching and programmatic development, research, and service is solidly in place. Some of the faculty with split or joint appointments may choose to increase their FTE proportion in Asian American Studies in the future, but it is important that during the initial period of the new department they