Battle Royale Movie Night and Bi-elections!

We have an exciting upcoming event to tell you about. On Thursday, January 19th at 8pm, EASSU will be screening the famous Japanese cult film “Battle Royale” in Sidney Smith room 1069. This is a great chance to relax and meet fellow EAS students before we all get too busy with work this semester! Pizza and drinks will be provided, and there will of course be English subtitles on the film. For more info: http://www.facebook.com/events/168671593238760/.

Before the film, we will also be holding our winter semester bi-elections for the open position of EASSU Treasurer. The elections will take place at 7:30pm, also in SS1069. If you are interested in applying, there is more info on our website here: http://eassu.sa.utoronto.ca/2012/01/14/eassu-by-elections-treasurer-position-open/. Please contact us at eassu.uoft@gmail.com if you have any questions.

See you Thursday!
EASSU

EASSU By-Elections – Treasurer Position Open!

The East Asian Studies Student Union is currently accepting  applications for the position of treasurer for the winter semester.  This is a great opportunity for anyone who is interested in getting involved on campus and making a difference in their education! We are particularly looking for a student who is  also planning on being a part of EASSU next year, so we encourage students to apply who are not in their final year of university.

The treasurer’s role will involve drawing up a winter budget for EASSU and generally taking care of EASSU’s finances. As a member of the executive team, the treasurer also helps to plan, organize, and carry out EASSU events.

If you are interested in applying, please send the following application to eassu.uoft@gmail.com by 11:59pm on January 18th.

 

Name:

Student Number:

Phone number:

E-mail address:

Why would you like to be involved with EASSU?

Do you have any relevant experience for this position?

Elections for this position will take place at 7:30pm in SS1069 on Thursday, January 19, 2012. Applicants will be asked to talk for a short time (3-5 minutes) about why they are applying for the position, their relevant previous experience, etc.  If you would like to apply but are unable to attend, an executive member of EASSU will read your application for you, or you may send a video file of yourself. All EAS students are able to vote in this election.

Grad Studies Info Session

On October 27th at 3pm in the EAS purple lounge, EASSU will be hosting an info session for all EAS students on the topic of applying for graduate schools. Professor Janet Poole has kindly agreed to conduct the session, and we will have some graduate students from our own department come to speak about their own experiences and answer questions. If you’re thinking of applying to grad school in East Asian Studies, you will definitely benefit from this info session!

ON EAST Committee Elections!

ON EAST is the East Asian Studies Students Union’s annual undergraduate academic journal and conference. Founded in 2008, it aims to encourage undergraduate students to pursue individual scholarship and push their academic boundaries. Every year, ON EAST publishes several exceptional undergrad essays and provides students with the opportunity to present their research at an academic conference in the spring.

For more information, check out our website here: http://oneast.sa.utoronto.ca/.

ON EAST is currently accepting applications for the roles of Co-Chair (2), and Creative Director (1).

Chair (2)

The Co-Chairs of the ON EAST journal and conference are responsible for publishing the journal and organizing the annual conference. They are assisted by the EASSU team when required. The Chairs work together during the process. Some tasks of the Chairs include: recruiting undergraduate editors, accepting paper submissions, finding graduate student and faculty editors, organizing the conference, and dealing with publication matters.

Creative Director (1)

The Creative Director is responsible for all design and formatting work required by the Chairs. The main responsibility of the Creative Director is to format the journal at the end of the year so that it may be published. This position therefore requires some previous experience with and access to publishing software. The Creative Director is also responsible for upkeep of the ON EAST website.

If you are interested in applying for either of these positions, please send us an e-mail including the following application:

Full Name:
Position you are applying for:
Program:
Email:
Telephone Number:
Why you would like to be involved with ON EAST:
Any previous relevant experience:

You do not need to be enrolled in East Asian Studies to take on either of these positions. If you are applying for the Creative Director position and have any previous work that you would like to include in your application as an example, please feel free to do so.

Deadline for applications: Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at midnight.

2011-2012 Executive Team!

Thanks so much to everyone who came out to run and vote in the elections today! We now present your 2011-2012 EASSU executive team…

President: Julianne Kelso
Vice-President: Liz Cinco
Secretary: Sonya David
Treasurer: Sol Ramon
External Affairs Officer: Melanie O’Reilly
Communications Coordinator: Grayson Lee
Advertising Officer: Nikki Ng
Class Represenative Coordinator: Jennifer Chun
Junior Executive: Zoe Weber

See you in the new year!

EASSU 11/12 Elections

Date: Thursday 17th March 2011
Place: Purple Lounge
(Robarts 14th Floor)
Time: 3:00 – 4:30PM
(Elections begin
at 3:10PM)

GET INVOLVED WITH YOUR EDUCATION! EASSU is looking for enthusiastic and motivated executives for our 2011-2010 team! If you’re interested in joining us, check out the list below which details the roles that each member plays on the team.

Positions available:
President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, Communications Co-ordinator, Webmaster, External Affairs Officer, Junior Executive, Class Representative Coordinator, Advertising Officer (Total: 10 positions available)

MORE INFORMATION

Event: January 24 – Presentation by Doctor Joseph Wong and Flora Chong

On January 24th 2011, the East Asian Studies Student Union will host a special presentation by Doctor Joseph Wong and Flora Chong from the Toronto Association for Learning and Preserving the History of World War II (ALPHA). ALPHA’s mandate is to discover and raise awareness of the history of World War II in Asia and its significance to human rights education. This presentation will discuss the history of World War II with a focus on Asia, particularly in regards to atrocities such as the treatment of “comfort women”, as well as war criminal trials and issues of compensation and apology following the war.

It will aim to answer the following questions:

How do we remember World War II in Asia?
What can we do to educate the next generations in order to share truth, gain justice, and promote reconciliation?

It promises to be a fascinating discussion, not only for those involved in Asian studies but also those interested in history, education, international relations, human rights issues, etc. All are welcome! We hope to see you there!

January 24, 4-6PM
Debates Room, Hart House

November 1st Events

Hi all! There are two very important events happening tomorrow we’d like to remind you about!

gradstudieswithrsvptoeassu

The first is our Grad Studies workshop, which is taking place from 1-3pm in SS2115. It will be hosted by Professor Janet Poole, who has offered to share information and answer questions about applying to graduate school and the types of EAS programs offered here at UT and at outside schools. Come out to learn about your options for the future! Due to limited space, please RSVP to eassu@yahoo.ca if you plan on attending.

Also, the “alternative town hall” meeting for all organizations involved in opposing the Dean’s (former!) Academic Plan are meeting tomorrow from 12-2pm in OISE room 2214. While we won the battle against the Academic Plan, the greater war against these kind of blanketed cuts to humanities programs still needs to be fought. Under the current university policies, our department is still in danger of being disestablished at any point without democratic consultation or intellectual rationale. This meeting will be a great opportunity for students to voice their opinions so that a document of our collective demands can be drawn up and presented to the administration. Now is the time for real change!

Due to these events, EASSU will not be holding our regular office hours tomorrow from 1-3pm.

We hope to see you at either the town hall meeting or the grad studies workshop tomorrow! Stay tuned for more upcoming events, we have a busy November planned!

– Julianne

Our department is saved!

Rumours have been circling for the past two days about the status of the Dean’s plan, and although we don’t yet have an official announcement from the administration, we have had confirmation from Professor Keirstead, the chair of our department, that we should offically announce the good news:

The School of Languages and Literatures is dead!

Here’s a modified version of what Josiah Blackmore, Chair of Spanish and Portuguese, had to say earlier today:

The chairs of the “affected” units had a meeting with the dean and 3 vice-deans yesterday morning. More information will be coming later, but for the time the proposed School of Languages and Literatures is off the board, and departments for the foreseeable future will retain their autonomous status. The discussion with the dean was positive, so we have reason to be optimistic, although much work remains ahead. The dean outlined several tasks for our departments, including undergraduate enrollments (for some of the units), and other matters related to graduate applications and possible collaboration between programs. We are, however, being asked to address these concerns as autonomous departments, not as amalgamated units.

While this is certainly cause for celebration, we still remind everyone that we need to ensure that this kind of proposal is not brought to the table without fair and democratic consultation in the future. If we do not make significant changes to the way the administration at this university makes its decisions, our department is just as at risk as we were under the Dean’s Academic Plan. Unless we continue our fight to increase the transparency of the administration’s policies, we could very well be faced with a similar proposal in the near future.

For this reason, we highly encourage you to attend the UTEAU meeting on Monday, and help us to draft a document of our demands to present to the administration. More info can be found here.

Updates on the details of this news will follow as it unfolds!

– Julianne Kelso, Vice President