2008 Woodie Awards
The Wang Center Celebrates Its Fifth Anniversary
April Warren
Issue date: 2/4/08 Section: Features
Deep within the maze of the Wang Center's third floor, Sunita Mukhi bobs a teabag into a paper cup, reflecting on what the Wang Center has brought to Stony Brook.
This year marks the fifth anniversary for the Wang Center.
To celebrate the occasion, Mukhi, Director of Asian and Asian American Studies, scheduled approximately twenty events ranging from an artist specializing in Buddhist paintings to an avant-garde musical group from Kazakhstan.
"The Wang Center is one of the best things that have happened to Stony Brook," Professor Shikaripur Sridhar, founder of the Center for Indian Studies and chair of the Asian and Asian American Studies Department, said. "The programs have created a sensitive, high-class, positive awareness of the beauty of Asian and Asian American cultures."
This awareness could be starting a movement. The Asian and Asian American Studies major is growing rapidly. In the past year, the undergraduate major increased by 48 percent.
"The Center allows Asian students a place to express their Asianess and [their] Americaness," Mukhi said.
President Kenny's five year plan also highlights expanding international curricula and connections by increasing the number of study abroad programs, creating permanent Stony Brook overseas-semester sites in areas such as China, India and Korea, and adding a "global perspectives" requirement to the education curriculum.
Asian students make up 22 percent of Stony Brook's diverse undergraduate population.
The Wang Center is an "aesthetic vision," as Mukhi put it. It's "a place for students to sit, think, quite down, and chill out... in a more deeply spiritual way," Mukhi said.
Mukhi said that the unique interior of the building, accented with fountains and spiral staircases, allows the building to be not only functional but playful.
The architecture and atmosphere of the Charles B. Wang Center are intertwined.
The building's design is so vital that P.H. Tuan, the internationally recognized architect of the Wang Center, will be honored on Apr. 24 for his work. Tuan is the only honoree of the semester-long celebrations.
This year marks the fifth anniversary for the Wang Center.
To celebrate the occasion, Mukhi, Director of Asian and Asian American Studies, scheduled approximately twenty events ranging from an artist specializing in Buddhist paintings to an avant-garde musical group from Kazakhstan.
"The Wang Center is one of the best things that have happened to Stony Brook," Professor Shikaripur Sridhar, founder of the Center for Indian Studies and chair of the Asian and Asian American Studies Department, said. "The programs have created a sensitive, high-class, positive awareness of the beauty of Asian and Asian American cultures."
This awareness could be starting a movement. The Asian and Asian American Studies major is growing rapidly. In the past year, the undergraduate major increased by 48 percent.
"The Center allows Asian students a place to express their Asianess and [their] Americaness," Mukhi said.
President Kenny's five year plan also highlights expanding international curricula and connections by increasing the number of study abroad programs, creating permanent Stony Brook overseas-semester sites in areas such as China, India and Korea, and adding a "global perspectives" requirement to the education curriculum.
Asian students make up 22 percent of Stony Brook's diverse undergraduate population.
The Wang Center is an "aesthetic vision," as Mukhi put it. It's "a place for students to sit, think, quite down, and chill out... in a more deeply spiritual way," Mukhi said.
Mukhi said that the unique interior of the building, accented with fountains and spiral staircases, allows the building to be not only functional but playful.
The architecture and atmosphere of the Charles B. Wang Center are intertwined.
The building's design is so vital that P.H. Tuan, the internationally recognized architect of the Wang Center, will be honored on Apr. 24 for his work. Tuan is the only honoree of the semester-long celebrations.
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