Here are some photos of the participants of Asian Oklahoma Night:
The emcees of Asian Oklahoma Night were Nghia Pham, biochemistry senior, and Luanne Vo, zoology senior. These emcees changed wardrobes throughout the night according to the performances.-Photo by Chinh Doan
Priya Patel, College of Arts and Sciences sophomore, and Komal Patel, University College sophomore, performed in the Bollywood dance. The dance included a collection of Bollywood songs from various movies starring the famous Indian actress Madhuri Dixit. -Photo by Chinh Doan
Mamisha Thapa, microbiology sophomore, participated in the Nepali performance. The harmony consisted of folk music from Pahadi mixed with contemporary Nepali tunes.-Photo by Chinh Doan"University of Oklahoma Community Enlarges Personal World"
According to the Institutional Research and Reporting Web site, the number of Asian international students has decreased at the University of Oklahoma. There were 1,293 international students from Asia out of the total number of 1,718 international students in 1995. In 2008, there were 728 out of 1,429. The rate of international students from Asia has dropped from 78 percent to 50 percent in 13 years.
The number of members of the Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) has also decreased from last year’s 66 to this year’s 55. The president of VSA, Quyen Nguyen, psychology sophomore, believes that the reduction in VSA membership may be tied to the decrease in Asian international students.
However, the number of OU students of Asian descent have increased each year, and almost tripled in 20 years. According to the Institutional Research and Reporting Web site, 468 students of Asian descent were enrolled In 1988; 1,040 in 1998; and 1,202 in 2008.
With the fluctuating number of students of Asian descent, what is the University of Oklahoma doing to encourage cultural diversity? Students are joining multicultural organizations, faculty are researching and developing institutions that promote diversity in each college and professors are bringing up the subject of diversity in the classrooms. The OU community is continuing to connect diversity, its issues and core values more and more.
President and Mrs. David Boren created the OU Cousins program in 1996 as a way of "developing understanding, friendship and unity among U.S., International and exchange students at the University of Oklahoma."
Each international student is matched with one or two American students and invited to participate in monthly programs that are free of charge. Students are encouraged to share their respective cultures with one another.
"We feel that we have gotten better in our quality of matches this year. We have noticed that there are a lot more Cousin pairs that come to our events and they will bring more of their friends," said Quy Nguyen, OU Cousins staff advisor.
This year, there are 46 countries represented in the program. There are approximately 600 American participants and 350 international participants.
According to Nguyen, OU Cousins has consistently been growing since its inception, and it has the largest membership in history this year.
"I think that more and more students, both American and international, are realizing how the world is becoming so global and how we are all so connected, and because of this they are eager to learn more about other cultures," said Nguyen.
There are new multicultural Greek councils this year: one multicultural fraternity, Gamma Beta, and one multicultural sorority, Lambda Delta Psi.
Olymp Nola, international area studies junior, is one of the founders of Gamma Beta. He said he decided to create an establishment where people are allowed more options in the multicultural Greek community.
"I believed that the idea of having an Asian-American fraternity should be just that, Asian-American, so that it may be expanded beyond the brotherhood and into the community so they can see what it's like," Nola said.
Nola said the diversity of the campus has changed since he first attended OU because he has began to notice more cultural interactions.
Institutions such as the Oklahoma Institute for Diversity in Journalism (OIDJ) offers an annual workshop for high school students with the goal of exposing them to the world of journalism.
"I thought it was an extremely important program that would add to the diversity of the student body within the Gaylord College," said Ray Chavez.
Chavez taught at the University of South Dakota before coming to OU. He is also the director of OIDJ and he said that the program was one of the reasons he decided to teach at OU.
"It has quite a mix of different cultures," said Chavez. "There's more Asians here in Oklahoma than in South Dakota, more African Americans here so it provides a pretty good mix when we try to recruit for OIDJ."
According its mission statement, OIDJ’s mission is to provide opportunities for students who would otherwise lack access to journalism training or who face other barriers to pursuing careers in journalism.
Members of the OU community are becoming more aware of the importance of cultural diversity. Although the awareness in cultural diversity may be slow at times, many are embracing the opportunities to enlarge their personal world. Some, such as the above mentioned, have taken initiative by developing organizations, programs and institutions aimed at showing others the need for the continuation of change for the positive.
Links:
Institutional Research and Reporting:
http://www.ou.edu/provost/ir/
Oklahoma Institute for Diversity in Journalism:
http://www.ou.edu/gaylord/home/main/outreach/oidj.html
University of Oklahoma Asian American student life:
http://studentlife.ou.edu/content/view/5/6/
http://studentlife.ou.edu/component/option.com_studorg/
List of multicultural organizations at OU:
http://www.ou.edu/go2/home/diversity/multicultural_student.html
Asian American Student Association (AASA):
http://ouaasa.wordpress.com/
Filipino American Student Association (FASA):
http://www.ou.edu/student/fasa/
Vietnamese Student Association (VSA):
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2219008070
Multicultural Engineering Program (MEP):
http://www.ou.edu/coe/wssc/audience/mep_diversity/mep.html
OU Cousins:
http://oucousins.ou.edu/
Ray Chavez, Gaylord College professor, tells us how the diversity of the University of Oklahoma has changed since he has been here the past six years. He also tells us about what the Gaylord College has done to encourage more unity and participation in cultural organizations and what the students and faculty can do to boost the diversity.
The number of members of the Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) has also decreased from last year’s 66 to this year’s 55. The president of VSA, Quyen Nguyen, psychology sophomore, believes that the reduction in VSA membership may be tied to the decrease in Asian international students.
However, the number of OU students of Asian descent have increased each year, and almost tripled in 20 years. According to the Institutional Research and Reporting Web site, 468 students of Asian descent were enrolled In 1988; 1,040 in 1998; and 1,202 in 2008.
With the fluctuating number of students of Asian descent, what is the University of Oklahoma doing to encourage cultural diversity? Students are joining multicultural organizations, faculty are researching and developing institutions that promote diversity in each college and professors are bringing up the subject of diversity in the classrooms. The OU community is continuing to connect diversity, its issues and core values more and more.
President and Mrs. David Boren created the OU Cousins program in 1996 as a way of "developing understanding, friendship and unity among U.S., International and exchange students at the University of Oklahoma."
Each international student is matched with one or two American students and invited to participate in monthly programs that are free of charge. Students are encouraged to share their respective cultures with one another.
"We feel that we have gotten better in our quality of matches this year. We have noticed that there are a lot more Cousin pairs that come to our events and they will bring more of their friends," said Quy Nguyen, OU Cousins staff advisor.
This year, there are 46 countries represented in the program. There are approximately 600 American participants and 350 international participants.
According to Nguyen, OU Cousins has consistently been growing since its inception, and it has the largest membership in history this year.
"I think that more and more students, both American and international, are realizing how the world is becoming so global and how we are all so connected, and because of this they are eager to learn more about other cultures," said Nguyen.
There are new multicultural Greek councils this year: one multicultural fraternity, Gamma Beta, and one multicultural sorority, Lambda Delta Psi.
Olymp Nola, international area studies junior, is one of the founders of Gamma Beta. He said he decided to create an establishment where people are allowed more options in the multicultural Greek community.
"I believed that the idea of having an Asian-American fraternity should be just that, Asian-American, so that it may be expanded beyond the brotherhood and into the community so they can see what it's like," Nola said.
Nola said the diversity of the campus has changed since he first attended OU because he has began to notice more cultural interactions.
Institutions such as the Oklahoma Institute for Diversity in Journalism (OIDJ) offers an annual workshop for high school students with the goal of exposing them to the world of journalism.
"I thought it was an extremely important program that would add to the diversity of the student body within the Gaylord College," said Ray Chavez.
Chavez taught at the University of South Dakota before coming to OU. He is also the director of OIDJ and he said that the program was one of the reasons he decided to teach at OU.
"It has quite a mix of different cultures," said Chavez. "There's more Asians here in Oklahoma than in South Dakota, more African Americans here so it provides a pretty good mix when we try to recruit for OIDJ."
According its mission statement, OIDJ’s mission is to provide opportunities for students who would otherwise lack access to journalism training or who face other barriers to pursuing careers in journalism.
Members of the OU community are becoming more aware of the importance of cultural diversity. Although the awareness in cultural diversity may be slow at times, many are embracing the opportunities to enlarge their personal world. Some, such as the above mentioned, have taken initiative by developing organizations, programs and institutions aimed at showing others the need for the continuation of change for the positive.
Links:
Institutional Research and Reporting:
http://www.ou.edu/provost/ir/
Oklahoma Institute for Diversity in Journalism:
http://www.ou.edu/gaylord/home/main/outreach/oidj.html
University of Oklahoma Asian American student life:
http://studentlife.ou.edu/content/view/5/6/
http://studentlife.ou.edu/component/option.com_studorg/
List of multicultural organizations at OU:
http://www.ou.edu/go2/home/diversity/multicultural_student.html
Asian American Student Association (AASA):
http://ouaasa.wordpress.com/
Filipino American Student Association (FASA):
http://www.ou.edu/student/fasa/
Vietnamese Student Association (VSA):
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2219008070
Multicultural Engineering Program (MEP):
http://www.ou.edu/coe/wssc/audience/mep_diversity/mep.html
OU Cousins:
http://oucousins.ou.edu/
Ray Chavez, Gaylord College professor, tells us how the diversity of the University of Oklahoma has changed since he has been here the past six years. He also tells us about what the Gaylord College has done to encourage more unity and participation in cultural organizations and what the students and faculty can do to boost the diversity.
Quotes by faculty about diversity at the University of Oklahoma:
"The celebration of diversity is one of our very dearly held core values. Our sense of community is enriched by the collective cultural differences and backgrounds of the individuals we bring to this campus. We recognize that the diversity of those individuals provides a greater perspective and a more complete experience for all of us." - Joe Castiglione, Director of Athletics
"Only in a setting where people are cognizant of issues of diversity and conscientious about making social change through educational equity may leaders hope to concretely change the perpetuation of the inequities in higher education and society." - Penny Pasque, Assistant Professor, Adult & Higher Education
"One of the greatest needs we have in this country, as we enter a new world environment, is to internationalize the thinking of the next generation of Americans. How in the world are we going to go out and compete economically, how are going to be politically involved if we don’t speak the languages of the world, if we don’t understand the cultures of the world? How in the world are we going to be ready to go out into a new international environment and hold our own when the next generation of Americans doesn’t seem to have an understanding that it’s an international environment in which they’re going to be living and competing? We must change." - David L .Boren, President of the University of Oklahoma
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