By Erin Pangilinan

An education article this week described that Asian Americans are advancing to become college presidents. 

As UC Berkeley alumni, I remember Ethnic Studies and Asian American Studies faculty raving that we once had an Asian American Chancellor, the late Chancellor Tien. He was probably a lot more likable than current President Yudof who most UC students protest with their recent UC walk-out. Unfortunately, Chancellor Tien could not serve as long as he could have. 

The article talks briefly about present prominent administrators such as University of California Office of the President (UCOP) Vice President of Student Affairs, Judy Sakaki and Dr. Frank Chong of Laney College in Oakland, California.

I’ve had the privilege of meeting both of them and working with Sakaki on the Count-Me-In campaign, but the number of Asian Americans in executive higher education positions throughout UC is relatively low.

While the article cites that that African American/Blacks have more representation as college presidents than Asian Americans, it may disregard the fact that there may be more African American/Black and Chican@/Latin@ Presidents merely because of the fact that there are far more historically Black colleges and Hispanic serving institutions. Keep in mind that Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander (AANHPI) serving institutions were only fought for by our community fairly recently when compared to their equivalent counterparts. The ones on the federally funded list are also far different from UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, UCLA, and the Ivy Leagues with many Asian Americans. 

But the article is correct that there is still a gap. It begs the question that if there was a UC president or another college president, who will they be serving? Will they be serving a campus with a large AAPI student population (how many of that student population is Other Asian, Pacific Islander?). And just why aren’t there more Asian American college presidents at these Universities?