AAS 119: Asian American and Pacific Islander Labor Issues

ASSIGNMENTS

Final Project Committee Report
(due by March 17)

This report is due in our last class session (March 17).  For the final project, all students in the class will receive two grades:  an overall project committee grade and an individual grade.  For final project reports, students should answer all questions completely.  Project committees may either submit a joint report on behalf of all members of their committee or individual reports from each member.  If students decide to submit a joint committee report, each member of the committee is also responsible for submitting a separate essay to the instructor answering questions 5, 6 and 7.

In preparation for answering the questions below, re-read two readings at the back of the Course Reader:  excerpts from the book Helping Health Workers Learn and the Student Activism Resource Handbook.

1.  Re-read on the class website the description of your committee’s main responsibilities. Overall, how well did your committee complete all these responsibilities?

2.  Identify resources (such as ideas, materials, or other contributions) that your committee developed that were used by other class committees or by the class as a whole.

3.  In your committee, how did the group as a whole handle the following common problems that occur when students do group projects:  students having difficulty finding a common time to meet, some students having difficulty following up on specific responsibilities, some students not keeping in touch with other committee members, some students not saying much in discussions when collecting new ideas is important, some experienced students not contributing their expertise due to the illusion that they are allowing others to carry out Shared Leadership, some students waiting for others to take initiative, and some students focusing only on their individual responsibilities and letting others deal with larger overall committee responsibilities?  In dealing with these common problems, what worked and what didn't work?  If your committee did not experience any of these common problems in student group work, why do you think the committee functioned well?

4.  This is a hard question, but I want all committees to try to answer it.  The readings in Helping Health Workers Learn and Student Activism Resource Handbook both emphasize the importance of educating, organizing, and transforming.  However, both readings discuss the three concepts of “educating, organizing, and transforming” from a perspective different than that of other UCLA classrooms.  For example, the excerpt from Helping Health Workers Learn shares the valuable story of promotoras of Honduras, which serves as a valuable model for Shared Leadership.  Based on the perspective provided by the two readings, how did your committee carry out the important mission of student activists to “educate, organize and transform”?  In your committee’s interactions with immigrant workers, did you meet any promotoras?  In your own committee, were there promotoras?  Why or why not?

5.  In your committee, what was your specific responsibility?  How well did you handle it?  In addition, how did you also contribute overall to your committee's work?

6.  Through your work in your committee, what progress did you make in developing the new leadership skill that you identified earlier this quarter during our leadership training exercise?  Specifically, identify by name those classmates who helped you in the development of this new skill.  Mention what they did to nurture your leadership development.

7.  Through your work in your committee, what did you do to help classmates develop the new leadership skills they identified?  Identify by name those classmates who you nurtured and describe specifically what you did to help them develop their new leadership skill.