By Vantage Staff
A Newman club that has been dormant for two years has come back to life, and its organizers are now looking for members — and they’ll try to bring in some next week when they put on a fundraiser featuring food from their culture.
The Asian Student Association has been revived this year by freshman Ba Minh Nhat Nguyen, who is from Vietnam and is majoring in accounting and data analytics at Newman. He recently put together a five-member executive board, and a few of them attended the St. John Henry Newman feast day party on Founder’s Plaza on Wednesday night.
The group made a poster introducing itself and its members and outlining its mission. Nguyen said that one of the reasons he decided to revive the club was to unite the many Asian students on campus.
“I want Asian students, instead of just studying, to actually come together and have a group, a community,” he said. “I know that there are a lot of Vietnamese students in the pre-med program, and I feel like they are not active enough. I want everyone to have a community.”
The Asian Student Association, though, will be open to anyone who appreciates Asian culture, he said.
“We want to share Asian culture, like how we celebrate Christmas, how we celebrate New Years and everything along with that,” Nguyen said.
The club is moving quickly to get reestablished, he said. It will try to raise awareness at a food sale that will happen sometime next week.
Though the exact date hadn’t been settled on at press time, Nguyen said that the club will sell fried rice, egg rolls and boba tea in the Dugan Library.
The food will be priced to sell.
“It will be a pretty good deal compared to around the Wichita market,” Nguyen said.
The club’s mission, according to its poster, is to promote cultural identity, foster unity, connect students on campus and share Asian culture. The club also wants to provide an inclusive community and share cultural celebrations.
In fact, Nguyen said, the club is already talking about organizing a Moon Festival in December that would include glowing Asian lanterns and lion dancing.
Anyone interested in joining can email Nguyen at nguyen682326@newmanu.edu
PHOTO: Dannicka McGrath, Photo Editor
