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>> The administration, whether limited to an individual campus or referring to the five-college consortium (5-C) as a whole, repeatedly appears in discussions about Asian American students' experiences at college. In student publications and the focus group, the administration is referred to as a monolithic and powerful body that has the power to grant or block student organizing, such as the campaign for a 5-C Asian American Student Center (5-C AASC). At other times, such as the formal proposal itself for the 5-C AASC, there is a clear dissection and description of the administration's parts and the roles each part plays in creating a campus environment for Asian Americans.
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>> Despite significant differences between the campuses, Asian American students across the 5-Cs believe that the administration can improve resources and support for Asian American students at the colleges. Specifically, students in the past and present want changes in: |
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>> Overall, students want the administration to make institutional changes that recognize the diversity and evolving needs of and Asian American students. |
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(a) Administration-initiated institutional research >> While the quality of and student access to administration-initiated institutional research concerning Asian American students varies from college to college, there are shortcomings common to all of the schools. >> All of the colleges conflate Asian and Asian American in statistics, leading to the anecdotal assessment that Claremont McKenna College 's Asian/Asian American student population has shifted from Asian American students to an increasing number of Asian international students. Furthermore, none of the colleges disaggregate the Asian American student population by ethnicity – rendering the problem of underrepresented ethnicities, including Southeast Asian and South Asian ethnicities, invisible. >> Students in the focus group stress that their multi-faceted identities are not captured in the existing data. Institutional research should strive to capture more details about students, especially class background, to more accurately depict the diversity of Asian American students and better tailor student services. >> Scripps, Claremont McKenna and Harvey Mudd Colleges either lack or do not readily provide valuable institutional research concerning Asian American students, which could be used to assess the needs of these students. >> Student-initiated institutional research at Pomona College provides an alternative model. “Call to Action” and “Revising A Call To Action,” published in 1996 and 2004, respectively, strive to portray campus climate more holistically than the administration's research does. For example, “Revising” surveys faculty and staff, not just students, and both documents survey the effects of class, geography, sexuality, and gender on students' experiences at the 5-Cs. >> What the administration can do regarding institutional research:
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(b) Support for resource centers & student centers >> Resource and student centers are a major form of support for Asian American students at the 5-Cs. The existing centers are Pomona College 's Asian American Resource Center (AARC), Scripps College 's Asian American Student Union (AASU), and Pitzer College 's Center for Asian Pacific American Students (CAPAS). Harvey Mudd and Claremont McKenna Colleges lack a resource or student center. Among the colleges that do have one, there are discrepancies in administrative support, e.g. AASU lacks a full-time professional staff, whereas the AARC has two such positions. >> Asian American students lack a 5-C community. This point surfaced repeatedly in the focus group: "…we're not just isolated as individual colleges and we actually need to deal with crap that transcends college borders; there isn't that institutional support there. There's nothing that can really sustain a 5C Asian American community and because of that, we become more fragmented than I think we really should be." – Pat, Pitzer >> Asian American students attribute the lack of 5-C community in part to the administration's disinterest, or opposition (as in the refusal of a 5-C AASC): "It's really hard to do something as a 5-C group together because we're usually missing Mudd; or sometimes CMC can't get institutional support for what they're doing." – Pat, Pitzer "…what [has] been frustrating is the lack of accountability on the part of the administration…about a five-college dynamic…there's this lack of accountability that I think the administration is hands off when it comes to 5-C and I think that is problematic because as a Pomona student, I can take off campus classes, I can live, we share dining halls, we share athletic teams, everything is shared so what happens up at Mudd is important to me, at the same time as stuff happening at Pomona is important to me…" - Sandhya, Pomona "I have a lot of expectations from our college. One being a 5-C Asian American resource center." – Sandhya, Pomona >> Claremont College students have campaigned for a 5-C AASC for over a decade, submitting the first proposal to the Council of Presidents of the Claremont Colleges in 1989. There have been 5-C resource centers for black and Latino students for over 30 years. The most recent proposal for a 5-C AASC was rejected in 2002, on the grounds that “variances exist across the Asian American subgroups, which include East Asian, Southeast Asian, South Asian and Pacific Islanders. We [the Council of The Claremont Colleges] believe that further institutional research is needed to help us and the student deans better understand the arguments in favor of a single service in support of Asian American students.” >> Yet, as the current institutional research shows, the administration has not disaggregated Asian American students ethnicity to examine what services are needed. >> Asian American students at Claremont McKenna College , which lacks a resource or student center, have taken the initiative to provide resources for students. Students feel the burden of proving to the administration that they need support, because the administration will only be receptive to students organizing, but not actively offer help: "I think we're improving because this year as opposed to last year, we went on a retreat in the beginning, and the school's pretty supportive of that and I think if we just keep on showing that we care about this kind of stuff and showing that we're not going to back and we're going to keep on asking for institutional support, eventually they'll realize that it's an important thing to us and they should also realize that it should be an important thing to them too."– Cat, CMC >> Although Claremont McKenna College students are proving that students can initiate support for each other, this is inadequate. Harvey Mudd College currently has no formal institutional mentoring program or student center. The administration must make an effort to foster a 5-C Asian American community. The colleges must acknowledge the responsibilities – not just the advantages – of being in a consortium. >> What the administration can do to support resource/student centers:
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(c) Admissions
>> The administration sets Asian American students apart from other students of color. The exclusion of Asian American students from MSAP parallels the denial of a 5-C student center, by denying that Asian American students are minorities in need of administrative support. Linda Hahn, a Pomona student, said, "All Asian American students should be invited to the weekends regardless of socioeconomic status because class is not a proxy for race."-Linda >> What the administration can do regarding admissions:
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