News & Events
President Hotzler Honored by Asian America/Asian Research Institute
From left, former CUNY Trustee and AAARI Executive Director Thomas Tam, City Tech President Russell K. Hotzler and CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein at the institute’s 2004 Banquet.
From left, City Tech President Russell K. Hotzler, CUNY Vice Chancellor Otis Hill, City College of New York Professor Emerita Betty Lee Sung, CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, Queens Borough President Helen Marshall and CUNY Trustee Wellington Chen.
City Tech President Russell K. Hotzler was among those honored by The City University of New York (CUNY) Asian American/Asian Research Institute (AAARI) at its 2004 Banquet late last year. Also honored were Hon. Wellington Chen, a member of the CUNY Board of Trustees, CUNY Vice Chancellor Otis Hill and City College of New York Professor Emerita Betty Lee Sung. The four were instrumental in establishing the institute in 2001 and in advancing its work and mission in the years since.
While serving as Interim President of Queens College in 2001, Dr. Hotzler agreed to have the college serve as AAARI’s official sponsor and home base. Queens College is located in Flushing, home to the most vibrant Asian American community in the United States. On November 19 of that year, with the enthusiastic backing of CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, the CUNY Board of Trustees unanimously voted to establish the institute.
The CUNY-wide institute was some 20 years in coming. In the 1980s, Professor Betty Lee Sung, who had initiated the Asian American Studies Program at the City College of New York a decade earlier, saw that Asian American Studies was flourishing on the West Coast, but lagging behind in the East. There was a great need in the New York City area for an institute to conduct research and generate data about Asian Americans here because these communities were growing at a rapid pace, following a diverse influx of immigrants who were having acute problems adjusting to a new country.
It would take two decades for Professor Sung and others who shared her understanding and ambition to garner the support needed to move the proposed institute from the drawing board to reality. But with the Asian American community suddenly the most rapidly growing ethnic population in New York City at the dawn of the 21st century and the Asian American student population the most rapidly growing within CUNY, the rationale for the proposed institute assumed a new urgency. The growth in these two populations and the implications for the University helped sell the establishment of the institute to the CUNY Administration and Board of Trustees.
Trustee Wellington Chen, who has been a member of the CUNY board since 2000, played a vital role in campaigning for and promoting the institute among New York City’s Asian communities, CUNY administrators and University trustees. As Vice Chancellor for Student Development & Enrollment Management at CUNY, Otis Hill has been an especially active friend and supporter of AAARI. He was a panelist in AAARI’s Asian American Leadership Conference in 2002. He also played a key role in the Asian American Student Colloquium the following year as well as the CUNY Conference for Students of Color held in February 2005. Both of these events were sponsored by AAARI.
Under the leadership of Chairperson Betty Lee Sung and Executive Director Thomas Tam, AAARI is represented today on all CUNY campuses. A scholarly research and resource center that focuses on policies and issues that affect Asians and Asian Americans, its work covers four principal areas: Asian American Studies, East Asian Studies, South Asian Studies and Trade and Technology Studies. The mission of the center Is to advance the study of Asian people, languages, cultures and countries as well as Asian immigrants and their descendants who live in the U.S. and to widely disseminate its research findings and educate the larger public on issues affecting America’s Asian communities and our relations with the countries of Asia. AAARI also works vigorously to advance the varied interests of Asian American and Asian students attending CUNY and other institutions of higher learning throughout the city.
Photos courtesy of AAARI.
