Years of student advocacy resulted in the establishment of the Asian Student Center (ASC) in Fall 2021. Although the plan to establish ASC was approved in 2020, it took a year to renovate, paint, and furnish the space in AMUC, where other affinity spaces, including Centro Latinx, Black Student Union, LGBT Life, and Center for Women, were already located. In August 2023, ASC moved to Cox Hall along with other affinity spaces under BCJ.

Critical to the university’s decision to create this affinity space were interest meetings held among students, staff, faculty, and administrators before campus shut down due to COVID-19 in Spring 2020. Three undergraduate students who led APIDAA—Alice Zheng ’21C, Julia Zhong ’21C, and Stephanie Zhang ’22C—were instrumental in advocating for the creation of ASC. Of equal importance was the leadership of Jane Yang ’98C (at the time serving as Associate Director of Outreach, Emory CAPS; she would later become interim Director of Emory CAPS). In February 2020, Yang convened a meeting to discuss ways to provide better institutional support for Asian American students. Zhang and Suh represented the students and faculty, respectively. In Campus Life, Donna Yarborough, Assistant Vice President for BCJ, provided critical institutional support to make the ASC a reality.

The Emory Wheel covered the opening of the ASC in its podcast series, Wheel Talk.

Students from Class 2022 at the ASC