Last week Friday, AAPICS coordinators and students met for the first time to discuss the beginning of a new, exciting minor at Queens College. AAPICS is an acronym for Asian American Pacific Islander Community Service Program. Professor Madhulika Khandelwal, head of the Asian American Center, Serena Chen (Program Assistant), and other QC faculty and students worked really hard to obtain a grant to put this program in motion. ^^

Although the Asian American Center has been around for nearly 22 years, few students and faculty are even aware of its existence (myself included and I am a senior interested in studying Asian American literature at the graduate level>_<). In the past the center has produced research about the various communities in Queens. Professor Khandelwal emphasizes that these studies were not limited to just Asian communities but also included Latinos, blacks, etc. Her major concern is that while the center's researchers have been generating amazing work, that information is not being transmitted to students. Currently in Queens College there are no courses that directly deal with Asian American issues, with exception to one Asian American literature course (so props for the English department ^^ on a side note: the campus was able to hire two new Asian American literature specialists, Professor Caroline Hong and Professor Seo-Young Chu so interested people should definitely check out their courses. I took a class with Prof. Hong last semester and she was amazing ^^ now I am in Prof. Chu's science fiction course which is turning out to be very interesting as well). With all of the recent changes occurring at Queens College, we can see how the campus is really trying to address this gap in the academic curricula, which is particularly pressing because of the very large Asian American student population.

The new APPICS program intends to maintain the community angle that the center has always been committed to. Professor Khandelwal is concerned that students who are only asked to study from books and within classrooms will feel that the subject is disconnected from their personal lives and the communities in which they live. For this reason, the APPICS minor will emphasize community service and involvement. This could possibly include research about local neighborhoods or internships at various Asian American organizations. The minor will certainly be interdisciplinary and throughout this spring semester faculty and student leaders, like myself ^^, will work towards compiling existing courses and creating new ones to establish a framework for this new academic program.

So far 3 APPICS seminars have been settled on. The first is a discussion about how teaching should reflect changes in a post-1945 Queens, the second revolves around the diverse Asian American communities within the Queens area, and the third focuses on Queens College, how we can learn from student lives and how pedegogy should address those experiences. These seminars are mostly targeted towards QC faculty and I just wanted to put a word out so that people remember to listen for future updates. The times of these seminars have not been fixed yet but I will post something as soon as I get more details.

As an APPICS student leader I will be responsible for keeping a blog (so expect another link soon ^^) and writing a 5 page reflection paper about my own ideas about what I want the program to include and address, so any ideas and suggestions are totally welcome. This is an amazing opportunity to get your voices heard and affect some real change at Queens College so contact me and I will definitely pass your thoughts on. ^^