October 4, 2004

Speaker to focus on Asian-American voters, Oct. 7
As election 2004 approaches, the impact of Asian-Americans at the voting booth is increasing.

On Oct. 7, Pei-te Lien, a professor of political science at the University of Utah, will give an address about the role of Asian-Americans in this election year. The event, which will take place at 4 p.m. at the William Benton Museum of Art, will open Asian-American Heritage Observance at the University of Connecticut.

Lien led a recent study, funded by the National Science Foundation, which found that Asian-Americans are becoming increasingly active in America's political system. Although Asian-Americans remain predominantly foreign-born, 66 percent are citizens, and 75 percent of the non-citizens expect to be citizens in the future. Fully 80 percent of Asian-American citizens who were registered to vote turned out in the 2000 election.

The study is the first-ever multi-city, multi-ethnic, and multi-lingua l survey of Asians in the United States.

In Connecticut, the number of Asians has increased from 1,500 in 1980 to 92,000 in 2000.

The talk will also touch on Lien's new book, The Politics of Asian Americans: Diversity and Community, co-authored with Margaret Conway of the University of Florida and Janelle Wong of the University of Southern California.

The book details the results of the NSF study which found, for example, that Asian Americans who are familiar with the presidential selection process strongly support a change in the system to award the presidency to the winner of the popular vote. The new book is yet another effort to ramp up the standards for studying Asian-American voting behaviors and attitudes, from the realm of anecdotal evidence and small-scale exit polls to the more revealing and possibly more policy-compelling realm of statistically significant population samples.

Lien's talk is sponsored by the Asian-American Cultural Center and the Asian-American Studies Institute. Copies of her book will be available for purchase and signing.

'Father of Service Learning' to Speak on Oct. 14
A scholar and former university administrator who has been called "the father of service learning" will give a presentation on "Service Learning and Civic Education" on Oct. 14. The talk will take place at 2 p.m. in the Konover Auditorium at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center.

Thomas Ehrlich is a senior scholar at The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, where his work focuses on enhancing moral and civic responsibility among undergraduates.

From 1987 to 1994, Ehrlich was president of Indiana University. After retiring from Indiana University, he joined San Francisco State University as distinguished university scholar, a position he held until 2000. Previously, he was provost at the University of Pennsylvania from 1981 to 1987, and dean of the Stanford University Law School in the 1970's.

From 1979 to 1981, Ehrlich was the first director of the International Development Cooperation Agency under President Carter, and he was the first president of the Legal Services Corporation from 1975 to 1979.

He is past chair of the American Association for Higher Education, Campus Compact, the Commission on National and Community Service, and the Harvard Alumni Association, and the John W. Gardner Center at Stanford University.

Ehrlich is the author or editor of 10 books, including most recently Educating Citizens: Preparing America's Undergraduates for Lives of Moral and Civic Responsibility (2003), which he co-authored with colleagues at The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.