Dear AAAFSC colleagues,

The Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) recently announced that international students cannot take a full online course load and remain in the U.S.  This creates a dilemma which "will force colleges and universities into an impossible choice— to reopen prematurely or risk losing invaluable international students and their contributions—and unnecessarily endanger both the physical and mental well-being of all students and faculty." (American Psychological Association [APA]; News release on 7/8/2020). 

According to the Institute of International Education (2019), 1,095,299 international students were in the U.S. in 2018/2019.  According to UMBC International Education Services, we had about 900 actively enrolled international students last semester.  The board of the Asian and Asian American Faculty and Staff Council want to express our support for international students and colleagues and to share a list of action items with our members. This list is adapted from a statementwritten by the international section of APA CounselingPsychology (dated 6/27/2020).  Hyperlinks to relevant sources are embedded.  Please check out the resources.

1.       Add your signature to petitions/open letter

a. Petition the White House: Allow F-1 students to stay in the US through the fall semester if instruction is online due to the pandemic

b. Connecting our world: Urge Congress to support international students & scholars and protect OPT

c.Change.org: Let international students stay

d. Open Letter Against the Student Ban by faculty at universities and colleges across the U.S.

2. Contact your lawmakersto support immigration reformincluding House Bill 1044 and Senate Bill 386.

3. Build your awareness about the racist history of the U.S. immigration systemand the different visa categories that may apply to your students and colleagues.

4. Advocate for our international students and colleagues by (a) recognizing and checking-in with them about the impact of recent proclamations and regulations on our international student community; (b) reaching out to our  institution’s international offices and Human Resources offices  for resources or a training related to how this proclamation and regulations affect our students and staff; (c) calling out xenophobia; (d) establishing emergency financial and/or legal assistance to support those whose legal statuses were displaced by the current proclamation.

5. Donateto organizations such as Justice Action Center, American Immigration Lawyers Association, and Innovation Law Lab that  filed a federal lawsuit related to the April 2020 Proclamation.

UMBC International Education Services (IES) is hosting a Town Hall meeting for students, faculty and staff on Friday, July 10 at 4pm EST to discuss the situation, share what we know so far, and answer questions as best we can.

Click here to join the IES Virtual Town Hall

https://t.e2ma.net/click/7nodxe/jdozdbc/7va4uz

Please share questions you would like to have addressed at the Town Hall here (make sure you are signed in to your myUMBC account to access the form):

https://forms.gle/mfFLPq1EAV8YTQMS7

In solidarity,

The AAAFSC board members

Tamara Bhalla, Jiaqi Gong, Fan Yang, Shuyan Sun, Aditya Desai, & Soonhee Lee

Dear AAAFSC members,

The Division of Student Affairs offers a mini conference on "Cultivating Skills While Disrupting Racial Injustice" today (6/25) and tomorrow (6/26).

Please check out the program descriptions below and join any program that fits your needs.

Thanks!

Soonhee

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Cultivating Skills While Disrupting Racial Injustice: A mini-conference on inclusion and community building

Registration: https://umbc.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4YJas7mXvT027yZ

Where Do We Go From Here? Cultivating Skills for Inclusion and Community Building While Disrupting Racial Injustice

Join the Division of Student Affairs on Thursday, June 25 and Friday, June 26 at 3:30 p.m., for ongoing dialogue and skill building toward inclusive excellence and disrupting racial injustice on our campus and beyond.

This mini-conference is open to faculty and staff. By selecting to participate, you will engage with colleagues on important topics and leave with an action plan to navigate the days ahead. While you will only be able to attend two sessions over the course of two days, each session will be recorded and will repeat in the fall semester. 

Session 1 - June 25, 3:30 p.m. – 5 p.m.

Difficult Dialogues: Tools for Holding the Necessary Conversations with Your Family and Friends- This workshop will introduce and provide an opportunity to practice dialogue skills to help navigate difficult dialogues around race and other identities with family and friends. Participants will leave with skills around calling out, calling in, and apologizing.

Intended audience: Open to all UMBC staff and faculty

Facilitators:

Carlos Turcios, Coordinator, Campus Life's Mosaic, Interfaith and Pride Center

Ciara Christian, Graduate Assistant, Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs

Session 2 - June 25, 3:30 p.m. – 5 p.m. 

Understanding Your Agency: What You Can Do From Where You Are - A conversation about personal action, agency, influence, and power. This session will explore how you can use your personal power to impact the world around you. In addition to exploring resources and action steps, this session will take a close look at ways to get involved at UMBC and in Baltimore and Baltimore County. 

Intended Audience: Open to all UMBC staff and faculty

Facilitators: 

David Hoffman, Director, Center for Democracy and Civic Life

Eric Ford, Director, Choice Program

Romy Hübler, Assistant Director, Center for Democracy and Civic Life 

Session 3 - June 26, 3:30 p.m. – 5 p.m.

Healing and Restoration: Shared Processing and Community Building- A restorative conversation to process not only race and racism, but also the impacts of the global pandemic, anti-Asian rhetoric, and resilience. Participants will explore ways to rebuild and restore community while remaining in a virtual world. 

Intended audience: Open to all UMBC staff and faculty

Facilitators: 

Davonya Hall, Associate Director, Student Conduct and Community Standards

Mikhel Kushner, Title IX Coordinator, Office of Equity and Inclusion

Session 4 - June 26, 3:30 p.m.  – 5 p.m.

Understanding Your Whiteness: Exploring Active Allyship and Solidarity - A conversation about whiteness and how privilege and allyship can be activated on a daily basis. In addition to understanding privilege, this session will include a conversation around challenging "white tears" and channeling guilt into action. 

Intended audience: UMBC staff and faculty who identify as white

Facilitators: 

Alayna Berkowitz, Assistant Director of Outreach and Mental Health Promotion, Counseling Center

B. Ever Hannah, Training Coordinator, Office of Equity and Inclusion

Session 5 - June 26, 3:30 p.m.  – 5 p.m.

Tools for Navigating the Anger and Pain in the Daily Life of Systemic Racism- From anti-Blackness to anti-Asian discrimination, a conversation focused on processing the anger, pain, fear, and frustration that comes with facing daily aspects of systemic racism and interpersonal discrimination. Participants will leave with tools and skills to help them navigate and mitigate impacts of racial trauma. 

Intended audience: UMBC staff and faculty who identify as folks of color

Facilitators:

Soonhee Lee, Assistant Director/Training Director, Counseling Center

Whitney Hobson, Staff Psychologist/Multicultural Coordinator, Counseling Center

Dear AAAFSC colleagues,

With the national dialogue on systemic racism uprising, we are reaching out to bring your attention to a meaningful movement on our campus.  Below is an email from Doha Chibani, LCSW-C who is forming a task force to compile anti-racist action plans which will be shared with the Office of Equity and Inclusion. This substantive and collective approach will help address structural racism effectively and enhance equitable experiences for people of color.  We can start our solidarity right here where we work. 

Please review the email below and consider responding to this Call to Action.

The AAAFSC board members

Tamara Bhalla, Fan Yang, Aditya Desai, Jiaqi Gong, Soonhee Lee

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Subject: Call to Action

Dear Members of the Asian and Asian American Faculty and Staff Council:

The board of the Asian and Asian American Faculty and Staff Council want to express our solidarity and support for Black faculty, staff, and students at this troubling time. AAAFSC was founded, in part, to address inequity and racism and to foster belonging and inclusion at our campus. We mourn the senseless killing and deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Tony McDade, and Breonna Taylor. We affirm our commitment to support Black lives and communities on our campus and beyond and to fight against anti-Black racism, particularly within our Asian and Asian American communities.

We support the statement issued by the Association for Asian American Studies (posted below), and will continue to use our group as a platform in the shared struggle against structural racism and white supremacy.

In solidarity,

The board of the Asian American Faculty and Staff Association at UMBC

Tamara Bhalla, Aditya Desai, Soonhee Lee, Jiaqi Gong, Soonhee Lee

*****

Statement from the Association for Asian American Studies: June 2020

The Association for Asian American Studies unites in solidarity with our Black family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and co-workers to call for an immediate end to anti-Black racism and the killing of Black people. We are an organization committed to social justice, intersectional analysis, and global human rights. Our fight against anti-Asian pandemic racism is rooted in a common struggle against White supremacy. The recent murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and George Floyd propel us to state, clearly and definitively, that Black lives matter and that we must abolish the militarized police state in which anti-Black racism is embedded. To end global anti-Black racism, we must fight racism in our local communities and educate ourselves and others about the rich history of Black Americans and support, validate, and value Black lives now and always.

The Association for Asian American Studies Board of Directors

*Karin Aguilar-SanJuan, Mid-West Representative
*Falu Bakrania, Northern California and Nevada Representative
*Keva Bui, Graduate Student Representative
*Jason Oliver Chang, New England/Central and Eastern Canada
Representative
*Jenny DeLuna, Assistant Director
*Chris A. Eng, Section Representative
*Anna Gonzalez, Managing Director
*Jennifer Ho, President
*Caroline Hong, Mid-Atlantic Representative
**Mimi Khuc, Contingent Faculty Representative
*Jinah Kim, Southern California Representative
*Tamara Ko, Associate Director
*Karen Kuo, Interior West/South Representative
*Rod Labrador, Pacific Northwest, Hawai’i and Pacific Islands & Western Canada Representative
*Paul Lai, Archivist

Dear All:

I hope you stay well in this difficult time.  I want to share the resources that were discussed at our community support meeting.  Please see the attached document.   It includes a list of social justice, mental health, and crisis intervention resources.  

Thanks,

Soonhee