EASSU will be hosting our annual Halloween movie night this year by screening Park Chan-wook’s “Thirst”, a vampire thriller! It will be in Sidney Smith room 2135 on October the 28th, at 8pm. There’s no admission charge, and we’ll even have free pizza! This event is open to all students of all departments, so bring your friends for some Halloween fun!
We had elections for our executive team last Thursday at our General Meeting – thanks to everyone who came out! We present to you our 2010/2011 exec team!
President: Michel Marion
Vice-President: Julianne Kelso
Secretary: Jessica Lee
Treasurer: Liz Cinco
Communications Coordinator: Sol Ramon
Class-representative Coordinator: Matthew Headland
External Affairs Coordinators: Jane Jhung and Youngsik Hwang
Junior Executive: Daniel Jung
The year is only just getting started, check back here soon for exciting events to come!
EASSU will be holding our first general meeting for the year this Thursday, Sept 30 from 3-5pm in the Purple Lounge. There will be food! Gen meetings are a great chance to meet other EAS students and learn about how to get involved this year in your program. As you know, this year is a particularly challenging one for EAS students as our program is under attack, so we need motivated and committed individuals to help us oppose the Dean’s Academic Plan. However, we’re still also looking for students who are interested in event planning, organizing academic seminars, planning film nights, etc! EASSU will be going on as usual this year, just with some added work as we fight to keep our program.
Elections for exec positions will start at 3:30. If you’re applying for an exec position and have a class conflict at 4, let us know and we’ll try to schedule you so you can do your speech and then go to class. If you have class during the whole 3-5 period, we encourage you to still apply, just send us your application and we’ll read out your answers for you. Better yet, send us a video or audio file of you reading your application and we’ll play it for everyone who’s attending!
For more info on elections, and to find out what positions are available, see here! Deadline for applications is this Tuesday at 11:59pm, so get them in ASAP! If you have any questions, send them to us at eassu@yahoo.ca. Hope to see you there!
We encourage all students to come out to our information session next Tuesday at 4pm in the Purple Lounge! Learn more about the Dean’s new Academic Plan and how it will affect you, as well as the future of EAS at U of T if these plans go through. EAS faculty will be there to discuss the issue, and answer students’ questions. Hosted by EASSU and EASGSU.
If you can’t make it on Tuesday, you can learn more about the Academic Plan and our campaign at http://saveeastasianstudies.wordpress.com. Don’t let the Dean dissolve EAS at U of T! You’re paying tuition, these decisions should not be being made without your approval. Get informed, and get involved!
As school starts up for the year, so does EASSU! We’ll be going to classes this week to deliver announcements about upcoming events. Here are the details!
1. We are planning to have our first general meeting on September 30. We will be holding elections for our remaining executive positions at that time, so if you’re interested in being part of our team, or just want to meet fellow EAS students, we hope to see you there! As always, there will be snacks! More information will follow once a location and time are set.
2. On Tuesday, September 21st at 4pm, EASSU will be joining up with the EAS graduate student union and faculty to hold an information session about the proposed dissolution of our department. We highly encourage students to come to this event to learn about what is happening and the consequences that the Dean’s new academic plan would have on their studies and the future of EAS at the university. The session will take place in the Purple Lounge of the EAS department on the 14th floor of Robarts. Everyone is welcome!
3. There will also be town hall meetings taking place with the Dean on Thursday Sept 23 at 4pm and Monday Sept 27 at 4pm, both in the OISE auditorium. This will be a great opportunity for students and all those affected to have their voices heard! It is critical that we have a large student representation at these meetings. This may be one of very few opportunities for us to come together as a group to present our issues with the EAS department’s inclusion in the School of Language and Literatures to the Dean, so please come out and support the campaign!
For more information about our Save EAS campaign, check out the website!
It has just been announced that the Dean of FAS plans to effectively dissolve the East Asian Studies program at U of T. All EAS language and literature courses will be moved to a “School of Language and Literature”, along with the departments of Germanic Languages & Literatures, Italian Studies, Slavic Languages and Literatures and Spanish & Portuguese. Professors focused on Asian history will be moved to the History department, professors who teach courses on anthropology moved to the Anthropology department, etc. There will no longer be an undergraduate program in EAS offered at this university.
We currently do not know what will happen to undergraduate students that are not in their final year of study at U of T. We do know that this will have huge ramifications for the interdisciplinary study of East Asia at this university in the future.
This has been proposed during the summer in order to avoid protest from students. We must act now, before the next phase of development occurs, in order to save East Asian Studies. You can send letters to the Dean at the following address:
Meric Gertler
100 St. George Street, Room 2005
Toronto, ON M5S 3G3
Phone: 416-978-4439
Fax: 416-978-3887
Email: officeofthedean.artsci@utoronto.ca
You can check out our Save EAS blog for updates. Please also join our facebook group here and sign the online petition.
Thursday, March 18 – 208N Munk Center @ 10:00
Speaker:
Marcus Noland (Deputy Director, Peterson Institute for International Economics)
Abstract:
Marcus Noland will speak about economic change in North Korea (including the failure of recent currency reforms) and the criminalization of economic activity in North Korea (including the expanded use of the penal system). His talk is based on two large scale refugee surveys conducted by Noland, who will also touch upon nascent dissent and political attitudes in North Korea based on his findings.
Bio:
Marcus Noland is the deputy director and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, where he has worked since 1985. His research encompasses a wide range of topics including the political economy of US trade policy and the Asian financial crisis. His areas of geographical knowledge and interest include Asia and Africa where he has lived and worked. In the past he has written extensively on the economies of Japan, Korea, and China, and is unique among American economists in having devoted serious scholarly effort to the problems of North Korea and the prospects for Korean unification. He won the 2000–01 Ohira Memorial Award for his book /Avoiding the Apocalypse: The Future of the Two Koreas/.
Noland was educated at Swarthmore College (BA) and the Johns Hopkins University (PhD). Noland has served as a Senior Economist at the Council of Economic Advisers in the Executive Office of the President of the United States and as a consultant to organizations such as the World Bank and National Intelligence Council.. He has held research or teaching positions at Yale University, the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Southern California, Tokyo University, Saitama University (now the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies), the University of Ghana, the Korea Development Institute, and the East-West Center. He has received fellowships sponsored by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars, and the Pohang Iron and Steel Corporation (POSCO).
– Hosted by the North Korea Research Group
CONGRATULATIONS to OUR NEW EASSU Executive FOR 2010-2011!! It will be another great year!
President: Michel Marion
Vice-President: Luke Witzaney
Secretary: Julianne Kelso
Communications Co-ordinator: Sol Ramon
External Affairs Officer: Michael Sarty
However, we still have four positions open: Webmaster, Junior Executive, Treasurer and Class Representative Co-ordinator
If are you …interested, please check out for another General Meeting in September/October 2010!
Oh yeah, it’s that wonderful time of the year again. Warmer temperatures, longer days and… loads and loads of work.
Fortunately, EASSU comes to the rescue this week with warm noodles and other delicious treats! Look for us this Wednesday and Thursday at the Sydney Smith lobby from 11am to 3pm.
(Join us. We have Pocky.)
