The second Asian American conference, "Asian American Conference on Education: Challenges and Perspective," was held on May 2, at the Baruch College in New York. The following questions were addressed: (1) what is the extent of school violence within the Asian American community? (2) How can the inter-racial relationships of Asian American be enhanced? (3) How does culture effect the development of Asian American communities? (4) How can the teaching of English to new immigrants be improved? (5) What are the current issues in Asian American student counseling? (6) What are the skills to advance Asian American leadership? (7) How can mass media bring the Asian American community out of cultural isolation? And (*) What are the current research interests in Asian and Asian American studies being promoted by the Asian American/Asian Research Institute. A number of Chinese American politicians, government officials and prominent academicians gave speeches, including Diana Lan, Deputy Chancellor, New York City Department of Education; John Liu, Councilman, New York City; Betty B. Wu, Commissioner, New York City Department of Employment; Wellington Chen, CUNY Board of Trustees; Ron Woo, superintendent, New York City Department of Education, Ngee Pont Chang, CUNY City College, Doris Ling-Cohan, Supreme Court Justice, New York State; and Betty Lee Sung, Chairperson, Asian American / Asian Research Institute.
The conference is sponsored by Asian American / Asian Research Institute. This was the second conference since the institute's establishment in 2001. Thomas Tam is the Executive Director of the Institute. The conference was chaired by Ngee Pong Chang, Professor of Physics, CUNY.