BY THE NUMBERS

In 1977, the Intercollegiate Liaison Committee was founded at Yale University as the nation’s first intercollegiate Asian American student conference. In 1978, the conference was moved to Princeton University and renamed as the East Coast Asian Student Union. Finally in 2004 after 27 conferences at 20 different college campuses, the annual conference would again be renamed to its current designation as the East Coast Asian American Student Union.

As of 2009, after 33 conferences and 33 consecutive years of uninterruped growth, ECAASU remains as the oldest and largest Asian American student conference in the nation and one of the preeminent collegiate student conferences in the world.

2008 – A YEAR OF CHANGE

Prior to 2008, ECAASU existed as a number of unincorporated, disjointed, and unrelated school clubs. Thus the 2007 conference organizers at Yale University envisioned that by incorporating and obtaining nonprofit status, the existence of an ECAASU national board would benefit the public at large including all ethnicities and genders.

In January of 2008, Articles of Incorporation were filed with the state of Connecticut and soon thereafter the ECAASU Bylaws were passed by the board of directors at the organization’s first report meeting. The first fully recognized National Board was elected soon afterwards in March of 2008.

ECAASU National was born.

WHAT DOES ECAASU NATIONAL DO?

25% - Organization and operation of public services throughout the academic year such as voter registration without preference for any political party, blood donation, and bone marrow drives. This is to ensure ECAASU’s role in student activism and organizing extends beyond the limits of a weekend annual conference.

25% – Organization and operation of regional student leadership retreats along the East Coast including Philadelphia, Boston, New York City, and Washington D.C. These retreats are designed to facilitate discussion of race on campus as well as to educate students about how to respond to racial incidents.

25% – Oversight of annual ECAASU Conference. Although every year each conference board varies by the host campus, ECAASU National will remain as a separate board that will oversee and ensure the successful execution of the annual ECAASU conference.

25% – Organization and operation of regional and conference workshops as well as conference panels. Workshops take place on various college campuses and are facilitated by community leaders, members of the national board, and students with real world experience. ECAASU also has collaborated with other conferences such as the Boston Asian Student Intercollegiate Conference and the FUEL Leadership Conference in order to reach out and educate student leaders at different East Coast schools.

Panels are an extension of the ECAASU workshops which provide a more formal discussion setting designed for a larger audience.  The purpose of these panels is to educate the public about both sides of complex issues such as the economics of urbanization and the existence of mental health stigmas. In particular, the Strengthening Communities workshop was held to find strategies for lessening neighborhood tensions in urban settings. The workshops are run by students, alumni, and other nonprofit organizations such as CAPAL and AALDEF. By organizing these events, ECAASU National hopes to inform college students about these public concerns and in the process, promote community building.

ECAASU has the same volunteer policy for workshop facilitators and panelists where no payment is given for sitting on panels but travel reimbursement may be available.

ECAASU BOARD OF DIRECTORS/ECAASU DIRECTORATE

The ECAASU Board of Directors (also known as the ECAASU Directorate) is an extension of the ECAASU National Board, consisting of past ECAASU organizers and/or former ECAASU National Board members. The Directorate oversees the administration of ECAASU National’s objectives throughout the year. Most importantly, the Board of Directors also separately determines the long-term goals for ECAASU as an organization that represents the interests of collegiate and recent Asian American alumni across the country

Current 2009-2014 ECAASU Board of Directors

Nancy Liang (Yale ’08)
Allen Pan (Yale ’08)
Andrew Lee (Cornell ’08)
Calvin Sun (Columbia ’08)
Anjlee Joshi (Rutgers ’09)