台美大學生跨校際協會1999手冊
Author Yale University
Welcome ITASA ‘99 Participants!
From the very start, we wanted to take ITASA to a higher level, so we set out in December 1997 to do things a little differently. Our vision was to attune ITASA to the students needs, offering resources of the highest caliber, and daring to experiment with the unprecedented:
Scope
We sought to take a wider perspective on how the different parts of the conference fit together to form your “ITASA experience” and added unifying elements to tie it together: An Opening Ceremony to kick the conference off with a snapshot of Taiwanese Americans, discussion groups at every speakers seminar to promote interaction, a Power Panel featuring our guest speakers in a culminating debate, afternoon workshops with a variety of special activities, an authentic Night Market in the Chapel Square Mall, and a Closing Ceremony featuring a slide show of ITASA ’99 itself. In addition, we’ve repeated the ITASA classics and fine-tuned them in our own way.
The Two Track Program splits the program into a “Taiwan Track” which focuses on the history, politics, and economics of Taiwan and a ”Taiwanese American Track,, which looks at issues of identity and ethnicity in the American context. We are all at different places when it comes to what we need to learn at this point in our lives, and ITASA should teach something new to each of us. This not only ensures that we cover all bases this year, but creates structural regularity so that this is accomplished every year.
The TAICO Caucus Taiwanese American Intercollegiate Campus Organizations Caucus, is a forum in which we can sit down and tackle numerous social, political, organizational, and personal matters ranging from diversity to dating, student-to-student, face-to-face. It’s rare that hundreds of students with unique opinions and experiences can gather together, and ITASA should showcase not just adult professionals but also “we the people.” This creates the opportunity for us to address real issues that matter to us day-to-day and promote campus activism.
The Omni New Haven Hotel is a venue of four-star quality, offering high-tech facilities in a tight-knit layout, so that you don’t have to be running across campus in the New Haven winter. Because the hotel gives the students a decisively centralized “home” for the weekend and a pleasantly professional conference atmosphere, we pursued a massive fundraising campaign to bring ITASA to a new site. Hopefully, the difference this makes speaks for itself.
Why all these changes? Because we want ITASA to be acutely student-focused. Because we wanted the structure to be a solid, coherent, comprehensive, and inspirational package. Because if the content is substantial enough to make a lasting impression on you, the impact of this conference goes beyond these four days. The spirit can be carried away with you after your trip back, so that ITASA ’99 fosters the growth of a community. We hope not to simply “restructure” but “revitalize.”
We’ve been eagerly awaiting your arrival, so we hope you enjoy ITASA ’99 to the full. It’s been amazing working on this project because of the dynamic team that’s pulled together, the shared vision, and all the fun we’ve had doing it. What we’ve learned is that it certainly pays to dream.
Posted in 2015/07
