OU Asian American Programs & Services

Please join us for an APIDA community social this Wednesday, 4/20! This will be a great time to meet students, staff, and faculty from the OU community in a casual setting outside the classroom or office and make connections. We will also have free snacks to share. Invite your friends!

Thanks to the APIDA Faculty and Staff Resource Group and The Asian American Student Association OU AASA for helping to make this happen.

Check back on our page for updates in case we need to cancel or change location due to weather.

Hope to see you there!

It’s May, which means it’s Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month!

If you’ve ever wondered how our Heritage Month officially came to be, read on for a brief timeline.

At first, we only had Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week, which started in 1979. Each following year, presidents passed annual proclamations celebrating it, with no annual designation.

The first ever APA Heritage Month took place in 1990 as an expansion of Heritage Week. Then in 1992, Congress officially declared every May as APA Heritage Month. And in 2009, APA Heritage Month was renamed as Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month!

Like most commemorative months, AAPI Heritage Month originated with Congress to remember the challenges and celebrate the achievements that define our history. While we love ourselves some governmental recognition, there is so much more to our stories than what can be found in official books and websites.

Throughout the month of May, check out our Asian American Programs & Services social media accounts for some highlights of cool histories and community members!

Good luck to everyone on finals week!!! :)

As graduation approaches, we would like to highlight our Spring 2021 AAPI graduates in a zine! Visit bit.ly/GradZine, where you can provide your first & last name, degree & major, and optional information such as a photo of yourself and your hopes for the future! Our theme this year is Hopes and Dreams, and we want to highlight our diverse community thriving, capable, and deserving of a bright future on our own terms.

Please submit your info by Tuesday morning, 5/11 at 9am. However, we will accept all submissions until Thursday, the day before the zine is released!

Feel free to share with anyone who may be interested!

Make today a day of service. A day in which we honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and the continuing fight for civil rights; not by taking off, but by dedicating your time to the improvement of our communities. For more information on how you can educate yourself, others, and work alongside of your communities for the betterment of all, see the links below:

https://www.naacp.org/dr-martin-luther-king-jr/

https://americorps.gov/serve

https://www.metrofamilymagazine.com/mlk-day-in-okc/

https://www.ou.edu/leadandvolunteer

https://www.ou.edu/unitedway

https://www.ccfinorman.org/

We are proud of our OU APIDAMENA Community Council for coming together to release this statement to show their solidarity with their fellow black and brown peers. As APIDAMENA identifying students, they recognize there is always work to be done within our community and beyond. Here is the link to all of the resources listed in the statement: https://linktr.ee/ouaasa @ The University of Oklahoma

Happy Friday! We also wanted to spotlight these astounding graduate students who also graduated this past weekend! 🤩🎓 Many of them were graduate assistants (GA’s) on campus in areas such as Student Life, Housing & Food, Athletics, and even at our Health Science Center in OKC! Congrats to these 2020 APIDAMENA grads, they M.aster(Ed) it! 🌟😄 If you or an undergrad/grad you know would like to be spotlighted on our page, please email us at [email protected] 🙂 @ University of Oklahoma

Happy Wednesday!! Congratulations to the CLASS OF 2020! 🎓🙌🏼 Here are some of our amazing APIDAMENA undergraduates who virtually graduated this past weekend. We are so proud of them and know they are all moving onwards towards greatness. ❤️ If you or a recent graduate you know would like to be spotlighted for their success on our social media accounts, please email [email protected] Thank you! 🙂 @ University of Oklahoma

Happy finals week! We want to wish everyone the best of luck as they finish the semester off strong. With that being said, we’d like to highlight the Spring 2020 graduates in our APIDAMENA community on our social media accounts! 🤩🎓 As both the MCPS Virtual Graduation Ceremony and OU’s main virtual online commencement will be held later this week, we thought doing this will further recognize and highlight all of our amazing grads. Please email us at [email protected] with your first & last name, degree & major, and a photo of yourself (optional, but encouraged) by this Friday at 12pm! Can’t wait to start posting all of our grads soon! 😄

As May approaches, we know that for those of you who are graduating, the graduation ceremony will not look the same this year as in years past. It can be heart-wrenching, given our current circumstances, that we cannot celebrate each of you in the ways that you deserve and in the manner that you expected, especially based on the timeframe that we’re used to. That being said, we fully believe that each of you should be honored for the path you carved through your educational career: for the long nights, the panic-inducing tests, the friendships you’ve forged, and the communities you’ve created. ⠀
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Each of you has done an absolutely outstanding job of pushing through to make it to this point, and we want you to know that we see and recognize you. Because of this, the Office of Student Life, and the Multicultural Programs and Services team, would like to create a keepsake on your behalf that acknowledges and spotlights your achievement that is separate from OU’s Virtual Graduation Ceremony. If you would like to be honored in this way, please follow the link below and fill out the necessary information. We’ll be uploading this keepsake to the Student Life webpage so that you will be able to view and download it accordingly.⠀
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Our deadline for registration for the MCPS Graduation Recognition application is set for Wednesday, April 29th at 5:00 pm. This will give us enough time to put everything together and post it online before May 8th.⠀
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MCPS Graduation Registration Link: https://forms.gle/3i1As2gqxDaZDy1w5⠀
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If you have questions about OU’s Virtual Graduation Ceremony, please see this webpage for frequently asked questions: http://www.ou.edu/commencement/virtual-2020. �⠀
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If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at any time!

As we navigate online instruction and practice advised safety measures, we also want to check in with [OU]r APIDAMENA community! ❤️☺️ Come chat and re-connect with us this Wednesday on ZOOM from 11:30AM to 1PM.

We are definitely missing y’all and please know we are aways here to be a resource. Our office will do what we can to celebrate our community virtually during APIDA Heritage Month 2020. See everyone then! 🥳

ZOOM LINK: https://oklahoma.zoom.us/j/414824146

ZOOM MEETING ID: 414 824 146

Our Spring 2020 APIDAMENA Community Council’s statement regarding COVID-19. The members of this council are comprised of student liaisons from their respective APIDAMENA registered student organizations.

We are proud of our students for coming together to take a stance against hate and to provide resources for our community members. Together, we can build and foster the community we want to see.

As we move into online instruction for the rest of the spring semester, we urge everyone to practice advised safety measures, social distancing, and kindness.

UPB & CAC Film Series will be showing the Oscars award winning & ground breaking film, Parasite, TONIGHT inside Meacham Auditorium! There will be a 6PM, 9PM, & midnight showing. 🤩👏🏼

In honor of this reprent[ASIAN], our Asian American Programs (AAPS) Office will have a table outside of Meacham prior to the 9PM show starting at 8PM. Come learn more about our office & take some hi-chews, too. 👀

5 lucky attendees who stop by our table & attend the 9PM showing of the film will be entered to win some Korean snacks & (1) $7 voucher for Asian American Student Association’s (AASA) Banh Mi (Vietnamese sandwich) fundraiser happening next Tuesday (3/10)! Wow, you don’t want to miss this! 🥳