1 10 91 http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/a47c4320ca5a756a6c5f87d68ebad5fe.pptx 5595622771b422073becbc047636780a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Women in US-Asian Relations Student Oral History Project Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Toma, Alexandra ; Christoff, Peggy Spitzer -- Senior Lecturer, China Studies. Director of Undergraduate Programs: Asian And Asian American Studies. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching; Women social reformers--Asia; Women social reformers--United States; Oral history Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject; AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/ppt Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2016_20170109_atoma_master Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Description An account of the resource Every fall, students at Stony Brook University in class, AAS/POL 307 (Women in US-Asian Relations), set out to interview women who are committed to enhancing US-Asian relations. Women’s contributions occur at many different levels of society and encompass a variety of occupations. In conducting oral history interviews, students prepare documentation for the Stony Brook University Melville Library’s digital collection and, in the process, acquire deep knowledge about women’s social, cultural, political, and economic roles in the United States and Asia, which includes those in Asian American communities. Each interview consists of multiple files, including: a text document and Powerpoint slides, which were converted to PDFs for this digitization project. The project is a joint effort between the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies and the University Libraries. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rubab, Marie, Julia Type The nature or genre of the resource text Title A name given to the resource Alexandra Toma http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/7f68d10f8794199124d670e252588e7a.pdf e568141fdec2c7633227676578c73a5b PDF Text Text Julia Cunningham 109027335 AAS- Final Project Report SECTION ONE Person interviewed: Alexandra Toma Interviewee’s title or position: Executive Director, Peace and Security Funders Group, Washington D.C Date, time, and length of interview: Monday, November 21, 2016 3:00pm Your objective in conducting this interview: To gain a better understanding of her career and how it relates to women in Asia-American relations as well as how her gender has affected her personal career trajectory. SECTION TWO Description of the pre-interview research (What did you find out prior to the interview about the person and/or place with which she is affiliated? How did you prepare for the interview?) When I received the name of the person we’d be interviewing I googled it, Alexandra Toma. This was very fruitful as it lead to her staff page at peaceandsecurity.org which gave an extensive �biography on her career and academic achievement, such as being named a “Top 99 Under 33” foreign policy leader by Diplomat Courier. I was initially struck by her impressive resume and list of achievements at such a young age, even mor so when I went through the other google search results and discovered her linkedin.com page which mentioned her prestigious list of former employers including Connect U.S. Fund and George Washington University, alongside many others. I also found an article written on her life by insidephilanthropy.com which had a plethora of information about her family history, including a small excerpt about her Romania refugee mother, her move to long island as a child, and that she graduated magna cum laude from the University of Virginia. Additionally that she founded the Fissile Materials Working Group which focuses on policies to combat nuclear terrorism. I was also lead to a video interview by the LBJ School of Public Affairs where she spoke on her reasoning for founding the Fissile Materials Working group, as well as her personal reasons for her interest in her field, her reasoning for choosing to work in philanthropy, the methods she uses to pursue her goals, and what her organization and similar organizations need to move forward in their work. Here she put a lot of emphasis in local funding and direct contact between communities and the philanthropists. Using this information I prepared my questions for the interview, putting less emphasis on her personal life and career trajectory (as the sources I’d already been through had covered that pretty thoroughly) and planning to focus on her current career, how being a woman affected this her professionally, what her organizations goals were and how they hoped to advance their cause in the next 10 years, as well as the advice she would give the next generation of women entering the field. �List your interview questions. Rubab: Ms. Toma, we understand that you are a part of the Peace and Security Funders Group which focuses on peace and global security. Can you please tell us a little more about this network and your role as Executive Director? Follow up: We read that you also founded the Fissile Materials Working Group which aims to combat nuclear terrorism. Can you please tell us more about that? Marie: What made you want to become involved in philanthropic work? How did you start becoming concerned with peace and security issues? What do you believe is the role of the United States in the international field? Julia: After everything that the Peace and Security Funders Group has already achieved, what else do you hope this network will accomplish in the next ten years? Are there specific issues that you hope to combat next? Round 2 Questions: Rubab: Can you describe any legal or technical aspects that impede the progress of your work? How do you work around these obstacles? What do you find to be the most difficult aspect of your role in this network? �Marie: Follow up: You mentioned you work with officials in the government, and that your work on capitol Hill was often obstructed by politics, have you found one party or the other to be more receptive to certain things? Julia: If you could tell the uninformed population one thing about the Peace and Security Funders Group in order to get them involved, what would that be? What is something that you believe our generation should be more aware of in terms of international peace and security issues? Round 3 Questions: Rubab: Because our class focuses on the role that women play in US-Asian relations and the many obstacles that they face due to their sex, have there been any instances in your life where being a woman has impacted your career path? Do you believe you have had to face certain obstacles in your career due to the fact that you are a woman? Marie: Did you have any female mentors who helped you get where you are today? If not, have you have any role models in general, and what do you think about the importance such figures have in our lives? �Julia: What advice do you have for the next generation of women heading into your field, or women, in general, who hope to achieve their dreams despite the many challenges they may face? SECTION THREE Answer these questions: 1. Did you get complete answers to your questions? Explain We did, she gave very thorough answers to our questions which really helped us better understand the organization she works for, their goals, their progress, as well as how the intended to expand on their progress. She gave really insightful and practice advice on how young women are perceived in the business world and she stressed the importance of negotiating for salary to us which not only was useful to our project but practical advice none of us will forget. 2. Was your interview structured, unstructured, or mixed? I think it would definitely qualify as mixed, while we did send a list of the sort of questions we would be asking ahead of time our final list of questions were different, though similar enough that the prep for the previous list would assist in answering them, so the interviewee wasn’t totally blindsided. We asked probing questions and let the interviewee take the questions and run with it rather than a strict, question, answer, question format. Her comfort with being interviewed really assisted with that. �3. What probing questions did you use? Explain Clarifying or follow up questions to ensure we’d understood her and that she knew we had understood her. One of the main goals of her industry was to increase government funding of philanthropic ventures, which naturally raised a follow up questions about any possible political affiliations. We learned that they work bipartisan to seek funding for charitable causes. This also led her to discuss the current political climate due to the recent Trump Election, she worked to remain diplomatic in discussing it but did mention how it threw a lot of her organizations connections into uncertainty. The Clintons have already been established in politics for decades, everyone in the field pretty much knew who the useful connections would be, who would be open to discussing what, in short, how to navigate a Clinton presidency. Trump on the other hand has no political record; no one is short where the cards are going to fall and that makes progress slow when you don’t know who to talk to. 4. Explain your team approach. That is, who did what? We decided to do three rounds of questions each of us asking one question in each round, totaling nine questions. The questions we asked were structures to influence the information we received in a pattern of general to specific information. Our first section was loosely intended to function as a biography and explanation of her work. Our second groups of three questions were constructed to understand her job and industry goals and achievements in better details, how they function on a more day to day scale and how they could better �function. Finally our last section was about the future of her industry with specific regard to any advice she would want to give new women coming into her industry. 5. Did the interviewee give you any documents or references to articles to read, or did she mention other people for you to talk to (or research)? Explain She did not give us any additional documents to read though she did mention the importance of networking and making connections. She named her mentor, Nancy Soderberg, as a person who was hugely influential in shaping her career and interestingly he woman mentioned was one of the women in the panel that Rubab did her report on for class. SECTION FOUR Insert your interview notes/write up here. Remember to be accurate and concise. Consider what was said, any emerging trends your interviewee mentioned, different interpretations, and recommendations for follow up interviews. One thing she stressed was the importance of how we as young women should present ourselves as we would be harshly judged, more so than our male counterparts. The idea that younger women are less respected is something that appeared in a number of the interviews. In ours Ms. Toma said it was important to Speak professionally, avoid “like”, “Uhm”, “Ya know”s. She also mentioned when she first entered her field in an attempt to look older she started wearing make-up and glasses, cut her hair shorter in order to be taken more seriously. Additionally as a young woman minor errors, even misspeaking, is judged more hardly; you cannot mess up, when a guy makes a slip up, minor mistake or misspeak people are much more lenient with them, when a woman makes the same �mistake, particularly a young woman, people are much quicker to judge her as incompetent. Finally she stressed the importance of equal pay. Pay discrepancy real, she learned this “The hard way” when at a previous job she found she was being paid less than a male colleague with less education and less time on the job, after discovering this is was much harder for her to attain equal pay since they were so used to her being payed less. In the end this wasn’t really fixed until she got a fresh start at a new job and started negotiating her pay. She took several minutes to stress to us the important of negotiating pay. She became very informal during this part of the interview even cursing lightly for emphasis which gave the whole thing a very relaxed personal feel. Her advice was to always negotiate your salary, do research on what the average person in your position is payed, and ask for a raise every year. Her advice was though we might feel uncomfortable doing it, it was the only way to ensure equal pay because “Men aren’t uncomfortable” they do it every year, so should we. She even gave us advice on the language to use such as “I appreciate that offer” “let me think about it” “Considerate” “very generous” “What I need-/know I’m worth”. Never accept off the bat, give it 24 hours. Another piece of her advice to young women was the importance of male support for professional women, while many of her professional mentors were women all of her grad school mentors were men. Her advice was to find men who “get it” and encourage them to encourage change. One example she gave was her husband who refused to speak on all male panels, calling them “‘man’-els”. Finally she stressed, like many other interviewees the importance of networking, and told us to keep her email and if we ever thought of getting in touch to feel free. My advice to other interviewers would be, don’t be afraid to alienate you interviewee by (nonconfrontationally) asking about how current events affect their profession, everyone has an opinion and �most are willing to share. It gives a better understanding of how the world around you fits together and gives a deeper understanding of the subject at hand. SECTION FIVE (25 points) Your analysis: What aspects of the interview did you find to be particularly meaningful? What aspects were not useful? What more would you like to know? What other in-class presentations did you find particularly useful? Explain The part I found the most meaningful were when she spoke candidly on her organizations difficulties and intentions. At one point when I asked if there was anything she could tell the population at large that she felt would make her job easier or give a better understanding of her her answer was surprisingly and refreshingly frank; She told us she wished more people had a better impression of philanthropic organizations, She said the Trump Foundation, the Clinton foundation, they kind of give philanthropy a bad name. Most of them aren’t like that, most of them really are trying to help people. I had to admit the general skepticism and cynicism that seems to have affected much of the country with regard to Charity organizations was at the back of my mind as well. Hearing from someone who worked in the industry and had a much more knowledgeable position to speak on them that the majority of the cynicism was unfounded was actually really uplifting. Additionally I found her take on how the next administration is disturbing the normal routes for much of her field to be an interesting insiders take on the situation. Also when she gave us advice on how to present ourselves as young women entering professional fields I felt that held a lot of practical value that I personally intend to remember and put into use when the time comes. �There really weren’t any aspects that I found to be not be useful, she was very knowledgeable in her field and had an informed and insightful opinions on current affairs and how to walk into the professional world. If there were more I’d like to know I’d have to say that I wish I would interview her again after Trump settles in office to see how the philanthropic field has adjusted and settled. However this obvious wouldn’t be possible to have gone into at the time of the interview. Another in-class presentation I personally found very interesting and useful was Laurens presentation about her WWII Nurse Grandmother, who learned Japanese, weaving, and traveled with her husband. I thought it gave a very personal and individual example of Asian-> American relations. Specially how one American can interact with Asia and Asians in a fulfilling and respectful way. It reminded the class, I feel, that even if you’re not in a high position in the USIP or a government official or working specially in relations (The women who worked teaching cultural differences and how to communicate between different cultures for the businessmen she worked with was also a very interesting field I thought) that it is still worth knowing about how to interact respectfully with other cultures, and how knowledge of previous less successful respectful interaction can help you avoid gafs. I thought it was a good cap to the class, and put into perspective a lot of the things we learned in this course, importance of language, integrating with local culture, feeling isolated from local culture, etc. In short it reminded me of the practical advantage of having taken this course, even if none of us specifically move into international relations, what we learned in this course has practical value for a richer understanding of the world and a better chance at traveling respectfully. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Women in US-Asian Relations Student Oral History Project Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Christoff, Peggy Spitzer -- Senior Lecturer, China Studies. Director of Undergraduate Programs: Asian And Asian American Studies. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching; Women social reformers--Asia; Women social reformers--United States; Oral history Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject; AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2016_20170109_atoma_doc_dis Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Description An account of the resource Every fall, students at Stony Brook University in class, AAS/POL 307 (Women in US-Asian Relations), set out to interview women who are committed to enhancing US-Asian relations. Women’s contributions occur at many different levels of society and encompass a variety of occupations. In conducting oral history interviews, students prepare documentation for the Stony Brook University Melville Library’s digital collection and, in the process, acquire deep knowledge about women’s social, cultural, political, and economic roles in the United States and Asia, which includes those in Asian American communities. Each interview consists of multiple files, including: a text document and Powerpoint slides, which were converted to PDFs for this digitization project. The project is a joint effort between the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies and the University Libraries. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rubab ; Marie ; Julia ; Toma, Alexandra Type The nature or genre of the resource text Title A name given to the resource Alexandra Toma http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/35666740135f5b446c2520970c0a1e8b.pdf 6e7c5493ab5634ac0d18f2bd3f53700c PDF Text Text 1 �Our interview was with Ms. Alexandra Toma, the Executive Director of the Peace and Security Funders Group, located in Washington D.C. The mission of this network is to enhance the effectiveness of philanthropy that is focused on peace and security issues. Ms. Toma, who also has experience in politics, government, and advocacy, expressed that more attention should be given to important global issues while setting politics aside. Her network aims to provide educational opportunities to members, as well as to encourage collaboration and the exchange of ideas. 2 �The questions we asked were structured to influence the information we received in a pattern of general to specific information. Our first section was loosely intended to function as a biography and explanation of her work. Our second group of three questions was constructed to understand her job and industry goals and achievements in better detail. Finally, our last section was about the future of her industry with specific regard to any advice she would want to give new women coming into her field. We were active listeners throughout our interview; all of us leaned in and nodded while she spoke, occasionally throwing in clarification or follow-up questions to ensure we had understood her and that she knew we had understood. One of the main goals of her industry is to increase government funding of philanthropic ventures, which naturally raised follow-up questions about any possible political affiliations. We learned that they work in a bipartisan manner to seek funding for charitable causes. In terms of verbal cues, we maintained a neutral pitch throughout the interview to portray that we were relaxed, but our pitch changed when we asked questions to show our interest. We maintained a normal volume and did not have to raise our 3 �voices. Both parties also resumed a steady rate of speaking. In relation to body language, we had smiles on our faces throughout the interview and tried to maintain eye contact the best we could through Skype. At times, Ms. Toma did look away which indicated that she was thinking about her responses before answering. 3 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Women in US-Asian Relations Student Oral History Project Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Toma, Alexandra ; Christoff, Peggy Spitzer -- Senior Lecturer, China Studies. Director of Undergraduate Programs: Asian And Asian American Studies. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching; Women social reformers--Asia; Women social reformers--United States; Oral history Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject; AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2016_20170109_atoma_ppt_dis Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Description An account of the resource Every fall, students at Stony Brook University in class, AAS/POL 307 (Women in US-Asian Relations), set out to interview women who are committed to enhancing US-Asian relations. Women’s contributions occur at many different levels of society and encompass a variety of occupations. In conducting oral history interviews, students prepare documentation for the Stony Brook University Melville Library’s digital collection and, in the process, acquire deep knowledge about women’s social, cultural, political, and economic roles in the United States and Asia, which includes those in Asian American communities. Each interview consists of multiple files, including: a text document and Powerpoint slides, which were converted to PDFs for this digitization project. The project is a joint effort between the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies and the University Libraries. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rubab ; Marie ; Julia Type The nature or genre of the resource text Title A name given to the resource Alexandra Toma http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/738b4447c8955bee663a95a2c8fc63d1.pptx 8134546eabf4fec76b1239aeea9329d1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Women in US-Asian Relations Student Oral History Project Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Christoff, Peggy Spitzer -- Senior Lecturer, China Studies. Director of Undergraduate Programs: Asian And Asian American Studies. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching; Women social reformers--Asia; Women social reformers--United States; Oral history Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject; AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/ppt Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2016_20170109_amurck_master Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Description An account of the resource Every fall, students at Stony Brook University in class, AAS/POL 307 (Women in US-Asian Relations), set out to interview women who are committed to enhancing US-Asian relations. Women’s contributions occur at many different levels of society and encompass a variety of occupations. In conducting oral history interviews, students prepare documentation for the Stony Brook University Melville Library’s digital collection and, in the process, acquire deep knowledge about women’s social, cultural, political, and economic roles in the United States and Asia, which includes those in Asian American communities. Each interview consists of multiple files, including: a text document and Powerpoint slides, which were converted to PDFs for this digitization project. The project is a joint effort between the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies and the University Libraries. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Norzin, Tenzin ; Murck, Alfreda Type The nature or genre of the resource text Title A name given to the resource Alfreda Murck http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/f72eb6ee87ae34bb8261c90f5c85e6a2.pdf 1a385b62ea41d498437a90351c5c7cd2 PDF Text Text Tenzin Norzin 12/16/16 Professor Christoff AAS 307 The Interview Section One Person Interviewed: Dr. Alfreda Murck Interviewee’s title or position: art historian and independent scholar with a Ph.D. in Chinese Art and Archaeology Date, time, and length of interview: The interview was held on November 19, 2016 at 2 PM and lasted for forty minutes. Objective: to trace the arc of Dr. Murck’s upbringing, education, and career and to connect her life to the broader context of U.S.-Asia relations Section Two First, I conducted my research on a broad scope: I entered Dr. Murck’s name into different search engines, such as Google and YouTube, and looked through the results. This initial step led me to five important sources. The first was a brief biography of Dr. Murck posted on a Princeton University alumni board—while it did not include any biographical details, the overview of Dr. Murck’s education and career was most helpful. The second source I found was a video on YouTube of a presentation Dr. Murck gave as part of the Humanitas Visiting Professorship in Chinese Studies at the University of Cambridge. The third source I found was a short essay on Jstor from during her time working as the assistant curator of the Asian Art department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The fourth source was from the Stony Brook University website itself: an event description of a lecture on Mao and ‘The Sanctification of the �Mango’ that Dr. Murck gave at Charles B. Wang Center on November 5, 2014. The fifth source encompasses all the author blurbs for her book, Poetry and Painting in Song China, that I found online on Amazon, on the University of Chicago Press’s website, and on the Harvard University Press’s website. These varied sources provided different insights into Dr. Murck’s life and career. I conducted the second part of my pre-interview research on a narrow scope: I focused on the five sources I mentioned above, took notes on the information they provided, and thought about how to use that information in my questions. From the Princeton University source, I learned that Dr. Murck earned her Ph.D. in Chinese Art and Archaeology from Princeton, worked at the Metropolitan Department of Art in the Asian Art department from 1978 to 1991, and lived abroad in Taiwan and China with her husband, Christian, from 1991 to 2013. During her time abroad, Dr. Murck worked as a consultant for the Forbidden City’s Palace Museum and as a teacher for Peking University’s Central Academy of Fine Arts. And from 2005 to 2013, she and the Henry Luce Foundation worked together on programs to introduce the study of Western art into China. From the YouTube video, I gained a sense of Dr. Murck’s personality and speaking style while the Jstor article, the Wang Center event description, and the author bios from her books gave a more comprehensive picture of her professional interests. Based on this research, I decided to divide my questions into three parts: her upbringing, her education, and her career. I wanted to learn more about Dr. Murck as a person but also supplement the information I found online with personal insights and experiences that I could not otherwise have heard. I prepared fifteen questions, five of which I sent to Dr. Murck before the interview so that she could prepare for them. 1. Where were you born? 2. What was your childhood or upbringing like? How did it influence the rest of your life? �3. Where did you get your undergraduate degree from and what did you study? 4. Did you always know that you wanted to study Chinese art? a. For what reasons, did you choose to go into the study of Chinese art? 5. You worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1978-1991, correct? a. What was your role at the Met and what was the experience of working there like? 6. Did you encounter many other women in your field, whether during your time in school or at the Met? 7. What aspect of your career do you most enjoy? 8. In our Women in U.S.-Asia Relations class, we briefly discussed the experience of culture shock for Asian immigrants coming into the United States. In what ways did you, as an American living abroad in China, experience culture shock? 9. What hardships did you encounter while living and working in Taiwan and China? 10. You’ve lived and worked in the United States, Taiwan, and China; what differences did you perceive between these three countries, especially between the United States and China or Taiwan and China? 11. In terms of your work with the Henry Luce Foundation, for what reasons did you choose to introduce programs on Western art to a Chinese audience? 12. How does art history, whether it is the study of Chinese art or American art, fit into the broader context of U.S.-Asia Relations? 13. To someone who might not believe in the importance of the arts, how would you explain the value of art history? �14. What advice do you have for students like me who are pursuing Art History and/or China Studies? 15. Moving forward, what else do you want to accomplish career-wise? Section Three I conducted a mixed-structure interview but prepared enough questions beforehand for a structured one, in case I was unable to come up with questions during the interview itself. I think the mixed-structure format is the best fit for this type of interview, which needs to be organized and well-thought out to meet the expectations of a college-level course but does not have the rigidity of a more formal interview like a job interview. I asked many probing questions, especially regarding her career and time abroad. For example, one of the questions I prepared before the interview was: for what reasons, did you choose to go into the study of Chinese art? Dr. Murck’s response to this question seemed to reflect that it was a decision brought about by chance rather than careful planning, so I asked her to clarify her answer. Dr. Murck did not send me any background documentation or research that needed to be looked through, not unsurprising considering that she is a very private person as I learned over the course of my research; much of the information I found online about her was regarding her career—biographical and personal details were few and far in between. I sent Dr. Murck five questions about a week before the interview, and she was well-prepared with a sheet of notes for those questions. She was engaged and lively throughout the interview, and fully answered each of my questions. This completeness as well as the thoughtfulness of her answers seems to reflect her measured, well-spoken scholarly persona. �Section Four Dr. Murck was born in Eugene, Oregon but grew up in Santa Barbara, California, where she also attended college. She credits her parents, who told her “to just do the best you can, and follow your interests, your enthusiasms,” for a “loving, nurturing” upbringing. After graduating with her undergraduate degree, Dr. Murck originally wanted to travel to Bordeaux, France to study French Impressionism but, realizing that her French language skills were not up to par and that Impressionism was what everyone else wanted to study, she applied to study in Hong Kong instead. In Hong Kong, she became captivated by Chinese culture and art; thus, a quick change of decisions and a desire “to see the world” were the foundations for her lifelong study of Chinese art history. When I asked Dr. Murck about whether she encountered many women in her field, whether at school or at work, she responded by describing her time at the Met Museum in the 1980s. She explained that, at that time, many of the docents were talented, intelligent women with expansive knowledge of art but that now “you don’t get that quality of docentry anymore” because those type of women, who were doing docent work in the 80s, now occupy high-level positions in museums and companies. She also described one of her colleagues, who had worked her way up the ladder. Although Dr. Murck did not explicitly mention that she thought women faced disadvantages in the workplace for their gender, her response, in choosing to describe hard-working women who were limited to low-level positions or who had to struggle to the top, speaks for itself. Dr. Murck also did not explicitly discuss the limitations she faced as a woman but, once again, it was expressed in the stories she told. After she and her husband married, they both applied to Harvard and Princeton; however, she was accepted to Harvard not Princeton and he to �Princeton not Harvard—after describing this, she laughingly said, “So we went to Princeton!” This story illustrates that Dr. Murck, as the wife, was expected to accompany her husband to Princeton and support him in his higher education studies while putting her own on hold. She thought that “it might be different now, that she might be more assertive, more of an independent-minded woman” but she still brushed aside the story by saying “but we had a great time and I re-applied to Princeton later.” When I asked Dr. Murck why she and her husband chose to live abroad and move to Taiwan and then to China, she described the job opportunities that were available overseas but not in America for her husband. Dr. Murck also worked while abroad but, at the same time, the reason why she and her husband moved at all was for her husband. Dr. Murck discussed how art history, as a profession, was sometimes not well-regarded during her stay in China: “sometimes, I would say I teach history, and that was okay but art history was not.” While people might dismiss the value of art history, Dr. Murck thinks art history is important because “it enhances life”—it exposes people to different cultures and allows them to gain a greater understanding of these cultures. If this is not reason enough, art history also has a valuable role within the framework of international relations; after all, “exhibitions are often turned to as a first gesture of diplomatic relations.” Countries that wish to develop good relations often will loan each other art “as a first gesture” and then progress from that point. Section Five The opportunity to hear from someone with Dr. Murck’s level of experience and understanding of art history was a meaningful one for me as an art history major myself. Over the course of the interview, I found myself drawing connections between the different parts of �her career that Dr. Murck spoke on and understanding the role of art on a greater scale. When explaining why art history matters, Dr. Murck described art as having the power to enhance life, and I could see that held true for Dr. Murck’s own life—she originally intended to study Impressionism but her decision to pursue Chinese art, motivated by her curiosity about and interest in the subject, led her to the path she is on now. She also described the diplomatic importance of art not only to divide but also to unite different groups. Consider the role of propaganda and then consider the role of programs like the one Dr. Murck worked on with the Henry Luce Foundation. To promote the study of Western art inside China, she and the Luce Foundation invited professors and experts in Western art to China and had them travel to different universities and centers giving lectures. Not only was a program in Western art motivated by the need for one but also by a desire to bridge the gap between the two fields of Western art and Chinese art through the engagement of Western art experts and Chinese audiences. I appreciated how engaged she was throughout the interview and how willing she was to share her life stories; as Professor Christoff mentioned in class, sometimes life stories are the better vehicles than hard-hitting questions for communicating different ideas. Her stories of her life as an art historian and the time she spent abroad were amazing to listen to, and also reminiscent of, as James and John mentioned in their own presentation about their interview with Carolyn L. Brehm, who works at Proctor & Gamble, the lives of the missionary women we learned about in class. They traveled abroad, often accompanying their husbands, to places and into cultures unfamiliar to them to teach the people living there. While Carolyn L. Brehm’s story and Dr. Murck’s story may be reminiscent of these women, they are also very modern stories with modern sensibilities. Thankfully, we have learned some lessons from history. *Publisher's note: Upon review of the student project, Ms. Murck requested the following addendum: "Peking University is an older and completely separate institution from the Central Academy of Fine Arts." - Alfreda Murck​ � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Women in US-Asian Relations Student Oral History Project Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Murck, Alfreda ; Christoff, Peggy Spitzer -- Senior Lecturer, China Studies. Director of Undergraduate Programs: Asian And Asian American Studies. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching; Women social reformers--Asia; Women social reformers--United States; Oral history Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject; AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2016_20170109_amurck_doc_dis Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Description An account of the resource Every fall, students at Stony Brook University in class, AAS/POL 307 (Women in US-Asian Relations), set out to interview women who are committed to enhancing US-Asian relations. Women’s contributions occur at many different levels of society and encompass a variety of occupations. In conducting oral history interviews, students prepare documentation for the Stony Brook University Melville Library’s digital collection and, in the process, acquire deep knowledge about women’s social, cultural, political, and economic roles in the United States and Asia, which includes those in Asian American communities. Each interview consists of multiple files, including: a text document and Powerpoint slides, which were converted to PDFs for this digitization project. The project is a joint effort between the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies and the University Libraries. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Norzin, Tenzin Type The nature or genre of the resource text Title A name given to the resource Alfreda Murck http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/1753fb36425ef2e29396eafb74fbe2fc.pdf 8720833d197bc0f28d7018d354e3f12d PDF Text Text Alfreda Murck is an art historian and independent scholar who was born in Eugene, Oregon and grew up in California. From 1978 to 1991, she worked at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she helped organize the creation of the Astor garden (the second picture) in the Chinese art section. And from 1991 to 2013, she and her husband lived in Taiwan and in Beijing, where she worked as a consultant for the Forbidden City’s Palace Museum. 1 �When I asked her why she chose to pursue the study of Chinese art, she said, “Well, I wanted to see the world.” Although she originally wanted to study French Impressionism, she ended up traveling to Hong Kong because of her realistic yet open-minded approach to life. After her study abroad in Hong Kong galvanized her interest in Chinese art history, she went back to school to study Chinese Art and Archaeology. As an art historian, Dr. Murck discusses the value of “cultural exchange” between the United States and China: it exposes people to different cultures and allows them to gain a greater understanding of these cultures. Oftentimes, art is also a vital part of diplomatic relations: “exhibitions are often turned to as a first gesture of diplomatic relations.” Not only are art and art history valuable for cultural exchange and diplomatic relations, it also has the power to enhance life. Dr. Murck worked with the Luce Foundation to promote the teaching of Western art inside China, a move she explained was motivated by a greater need for the study of Western art than for Chinese art and by how presumptuous it would have been for Westerners to teach the Chinese how to study their own art. This reminded me of the missionaries’ efforts to do exactly that—teach the people whose countries they were living in how to live their lives; and in some ways, the course of 2 �Dr. Murck’s life is similar to that of the missionaries we discussed, as James and John mentioned yesterday in connection to their interviewee. But thankfully, as we can see in Dr. Murck’s description of the organization’s work, we have learned some lessons from history. 2 �My interview was a little different in that I interviewed Dr. Murck in person at her apartment in the city—the professor even lent me her video camera and tripod. Because it was an in person interview, the nonverbal cues were a little more readily apparent than they might have been otherwise. I noticed at the beginning of the interview that both our postures were a little tense—I was leaning forward in my chair because, as the interviewer, I wanted to look attentive—but, as the interview progressed, we both relaxed into more comfortable positions and stopped shifting around in our chairs. We had steady eye contact throughout as well. In terms of verbal cues, Dr. Murck began the interview by jokingly asking if the camera was too close and if her head was cut off in the video camera—and it was. After I set up the video camera again correctly, she complimented my first question (about how her parents had influenced her life) and said that it was something she had never thought to consider. For me, I hope that I seemed as interested and curious during the interview as I was—my major is art history and so speaking to an art historian about her life and her career was an amazing experience. I prepared about 15 questions before the interview that were organized chronologically; my intention going into the interview was to trace over Dr. Murck’s early life, education, and career, and then connect her life and work to the greater context of U.S.-Asia relations. She answered many of my questions with her 3 �response to my first question—I don’t know if that was because my question was too broad or the interviewee had the expectation that she should give this overall summary of herself first. Thinking that I would need to come up with questions on the spot, I was a little flustered but I went ahead and asked the questions she had answered with her first response anyway. She only traced over the arc of her life generally, so with my specific questions I was able to elicit more detailed, specific responses. That is one example of active listening from the interview. I think this interview was a very interesting experience in that it reflected many of the stories we have discussed over the course of the class but with modern perspectives and sensibilities. 3 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Women in US-Asian Relations Student Oral History Project Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Murck, Alfreda ; Christoff, Peggy Spitzer -- Senior Lecturer, China Studies. Director of Undergraduate Programs: Asian And Asian American Studies. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching; Women social reformers--Asia; Women social reformers--United States; Oral history Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject; AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2016_20170109_amurck_ppt_dis Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Description An account of the resource Every fall, students at Stony Brook University in class, AAS/POL 307 (Women in US-Asian Relations), set out to interview women who are committed to enhancing US-Asian relations. Women’s contributions occur at many different levels of society and encompass a variety of occupations. In conducting oral history interviews, students prepare documentation for the Stony Brook University Melville Library’s digital collection and, in the process, acquire deep knowledge about women’s social, cultural, political, and economic roles in the United States and Asia, which includes those in Asian American communities. Each interview consists of multiple files, including: a text document and Powerpoint slides, which were converted to PDFs for this digitization project. The project is a joint effort between the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies and the University Libraries. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Norzin, Tenzin Type The nature or genre of the resource text Title A name given to the resource Alfreda Murck http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/92b43c23e72a8f67a627d44ac02f70e3.pptx e902bd69c264cb74410c607453bf1676 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Women in US-Asian Relations Student Oral History Project Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2018_20180418_ahall_master Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/ppt Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jimenez-Hudis, Aracely Seiller, Emily Title A name given to the resource Amy Hall Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-04-18 Type The nature or genre of the resource image Description An account of the resource Every fall, students at Stony Brook University in class, AAS/POL 307 (Women in US-Asian Relations), set out to interview women who are committed to enhancing US-Asian relations. Women's contributions occur at many different levels of society and encompass a variety of occupations. In conducting oral history interviews, students prepare documentation for the Stony Brook University Melville Library's digital collection and, in the process, acquire deep knowledge about women's social, cultural, political, and economic roles in the United States and Asia, which includes those in Asian American communities. Each interview consists of multiple files, including: a text document and Powerpoint slides, which were converted to PDFs for this digitization project. The project is a joint effort between the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies and the University Libraries. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching Women social reformers--Asia Women social reformers--United States Oral history Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Christoff, Peggy Spitzer -- Senior Lecturer, China Studies. Director of Undergraduate Programs: Asian And Asian American Studies. Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2017 http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/1a5ff7c451a420742e6338b01daa9c39.pdf 89c2c1c695448128266716e243fa89cc PDF Text Text �Amy Hall is a Chinese-American woman who was raised in Connecticut and a suburb of Philadelphia. In our 45- minute interview she always returned to the idea that since a young age she had always been interested in humanitarian work, serving others any way she could. Ms. Hall mentioned in the interview that her experience growing up as a Chinese-American girl in predominantly white spaces made her want to help others who also felt left out of society. She has been able to achieve that goal through working with a high-end fashion company called Eileen Fisher for the past 25 years as both the Director of Social Consciousness and, as of earlier this month, Vice President. As Director of Social Consciousness, Ms. Hall had the combined multilingual and cross-cultural experience to effectively negotiate with the many people in Eileen Fisher’s supply chain. Eileen Fisher also works very hard to switch over to totally environmentally friendly and sustainable practices, from labor reform among their suppliers and workers to changing the fibers they use and even recycling old Eileen Fisher products into new products for limited edition sale. We have an example of reconstructed recycled clothes here on the slide. This is just one of the many styles offered in the new collection. Projects like this has a huge impact on the environment. I don’t know if you guys know this but the fashion industry has a huge waste issue. The financial success of the fashion industry literally hinges on the fast rotation of in versus out styles. Besides this, clothes are often made with plastic or synthetic materials and these fabrics go through a washing machine particles from the clothes called microplastics seep into the water supply, and since they’re microscopic they can’t be filtered out by treatment systems. (clip1). One of my favorite parts of the interview was when Ms. Hall described how she learned from a large scale mistake. �For some background, Eileen Fisher wanted to find a way to give the workers making its clothes healthcare but after getting one supplier on board, they learned the hard way about a flaw in the plan. (clip2). I think this was a really important part of the interview because it reflected the fact that American practices and moral values are not applicable everywhere else in the world. It reminded me a lot of our numerous in class discussions about American moral imperialism and how just throwing solutions tailored for US social problems won’t magically fix social problems abroad. Poverty and the working class are not the same everywhere and I think this excerpt perfectly demonstrates that if U.S citizens actually want to create change abroad you actually have to be on the ground, working with locals to create lasting solutions they actually support and want for themselves and their families. 3:50 - on diversity 5:00 - interest and language, Spanish→ Chinese 7:00 - work in human rights, how she got interested. 10:40 - work in fundraising isn’t exactly what she hoped it would be 13:30 - community relations manager four years into working fr EF, commitment to ppl in supply chain 22:07 - 23:20 - EF and sustainable practices, fibers 23:30 - Ms. Hall speaking about failure and learning from mistakes 23:50 - 26:04 - The Mistake (clip2) �We centered our first bulk of questions around her early life, growing up in Connecticut and Philadelphia, and then her college career. From there we delved into more detailed questions about her classes, her major, studying abroad, and if she had any role models in her life. After that, we tried to direct the interview into her time working for Eileen Fisher, INC. Before Eileen Fisher, she works for three non-profits, and found that her skillset rested in fundraising. Yet, she found this wasn’t a great fit for her personality. Fundraising wasn’t satisfying and it didn’t bring her the impact she had, it made her feel too far removed. She wished to work hands on within the communities she helps. It was difficult to manifest what she wanted to happen, happen. She walked away from fundraising at the age of 32. She ended up getting an administrative position, as the assistant to a CEO of a small, fashion company. The CEO ended up leaving the company a few months later. — Four years later, she was given the title community relations manager. This was Eileen Fisher. She has now been working for the company for 25 years. We backtracked a bit after this bulk of conversation, asking about her time studying abroad in China in 1979. We asked if she had ever been back to China after that. She goes quite frequently, once every year or two now to visit suppliers for Eileen Fisher. Questions about Eileen Fisher, sustainability and human rights that would eventually conclude the interview. �Aracely and I truly tried to capture her life and everything she has built and grown into within the short frame of our interview, and Amy was more than willing to speak on her life, even without prodding. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Women in US-Asian Relations Student Oral History Project Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2018_20180418_ahall_ppt_dis Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jimenez-Hudis, Aracely Seiller, Emily Title A name given to the resource Amy Hall Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-04-18 Type The nature or genre of the resource text Description An account of the resource Every fall, students at Stony Brook University in class, AAS/POL 307 (Women in US-Asian Relations), set out to interview women who are committed to enhancing US-Asian relations. Women's contributions occur at many different levels of society and encompass a variety of occupations. In conducting oral history interviews, students prepare documentation for the Stony Brook University Melville Library's digital collection and, in the process, acquire deep knowledge about women's social, cultural, political, and economic roles in the United States and Asia, which includes those in Asian American communities. Each interview consists of multiple files, including: a text document and Powerpoint slides, which were converted to PDFs for this digitization project. The project is a joint effort between the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies and the University Libraries. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching Women social reformers--Asia Women social reformers--United States Oral history Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Christoff, Peggy Spitzer -- Senior Lecturer, China Studies. Director of Undergraduate Programs: Asian And Asian American Studies. Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2017 http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/dfe71d29a321e1b6629bd42fcf9c7816.pdf df21a55ae043e345c3680acef2e0b75c PDF Text Text Aracely Jimenez-Hudis and Emily Seiller AAS 307 Final Report May 9 2018 Section I - Interviewee information Amy Hall Vice President, Eileen Fisher April 18, 2018 4:30 p.m. EST Objective: to obtain an oral history from Amy Hall documenting her childhood, collegiate career and professional careers. Section II - Pre-Interview Process After our interview with Charlene Barshefsky fell through, we wanted to research and schedule an interview with Amy Hall as soon as possible. A simple google search of “Amy Hall Eileen Fisher” turned up her LinkedIn profile, which was very helpful in providing a skeletal outline for different possible interview questions. Ms. Hall had all her education and work experience listed and although we were not completely familiar with all the places she has worked, research on these organizations also gave us a good starting point for formulation questions. We broke up our list of questions into four main sections: Early life/childhood, education, early career and current career/reflection. Ms. Hall has worked at Eileen Fisher for the past 25 years so we focused a lot of our questions on the current career/reflection section. Although we came up with interview questions separately, we met prior to the interview itself and divided the questions in half for each of us to ask. Since we were able to conduct our interview over Skype, we thought it would be best if both of us were fully engaged in the conversation rather than have one person ask questions and the other mostly just take notes. Here are our interview questions as they were originally organized: Early Life - Where did you grow up? - Are there any childhood experiences that influenced your career path? - Have you always been interested in sustainability? Education - What was the most valuable lesson you learned at Georgetown University? - Did you have have any influential mentors during your undergraduate career? - What were some of your life or career goals when you graduated from Georgetown? - What prompted you to get your MBA in 2008? Career Early career - Tell us about your time at the Institute for International Education. What was your most challenging project as Manager of Resource Development? Current career - Tell us about your position as Director of Social Consciousness at Eileen Fisher. - Do you think the fashion industry can be a leader in the movement toward sustainable practices? - What projects or innovations that you spearheaded at Eileen Fisher are you most proud of? �- How do you think your background in Linguistics has influenced your career, the way you communicate ideas or the way handle certain projects? What advice do you have for people looking to either lead more sustainable lives or enter a career in sustainability? Do you think purchasing power at the level of the individual consumer has a significant impact on creating an atmosphere/culture of sustainability and environmental awareness? Section III - Interview Summary 1. We definitely got complete answers to most of our questions. After a couple minutes went by during the interview we quickly noticed that Ms. Hall had a lot to say about her life and career and she actually ended up touching on a few of our questions unprompted. As a result, we let Ms. Hall lead the flow of the interview for the most part, letting her speak at length and connecting topics to one another. One example that comes to mind is when Ms. Hall was describing how her study of languages in college helped her get to the position she has now at Eileen Fisher. 2. Our interview was a mix of structured and unstructured. As we mentioned in the answer to the previous question, we had set categories of questions but if Ms. Hall began to speak at length about a topic, we let her, even if it was not necessarily in a precise chronological order. 3. Throughout the project, the workload was shared equally. The initial interview inquiry letter was drafted on a shared Google Doc, as were the interview questions and this very report. Even our presentation was divided equally. In the interview itself, our approach was very similar. As previously mentioned, we split up the questions beforehand and each of us asked our fair share of probing questions, some we had planned on asking and other we asked on the spot. We also made sure to not let there be long gaps in the interview. For example, if we were at a stage in the interview where we were asking questions pertaining to particular section of questions, one of us would jump in with either a topic switch or a new follow up question. 4. While Ms. Hall did not refer any outside links or resources, she did encourage us to check out the Eileen Fisher website which has a lot of information about its human rights and environmental sustainability initiatives. Section IV - Interview Transcript EMILY SEILLER (ES): Where did you grow up? AMY HALL (AH): Until seventh grade I grew up in Connecticut and junior high and high school in a suburb of Philadelphia. They were both suburban and in terms of the Connecticut experience my family was the diversity in the town. My father was Chinese and my mother Caucasian and both were born here so being in CT and being Asian in appearance though obviously American in upbringing was an interesting experience. This goes back to the ‘60s and �people just looked at us as different and weird and not like them. There was a lot of bullying and ostracising and stuff like that. ARACELY JIMENEZ (AJ): Did that situation change or improve when you moved to the Philadelphia suburb? AH: When we got to Philadelphia we were still very much a minority. There were a handful more, very small number of Asian kids in the schools, maybe fewer than ten. And probably fewer than four African-American kids, it was very white-oriented. How that influenced me though was when I got to college. I always loved languages and so when I applied to college I really wanted to study languages. My primary language at that point, besides English, was Spanish and I thought I would be a Spanish major. But when I got to college and saw how many Spanish majors there were, the intake counselor asked me what other languages would I want to study and I said “Definitely Chinese,” because of my background I’m sort of curious about it. So he said I should write about it in my application and in doing that I ended up actually majoring in Chinese even though I had never studied it before, nor had I ever known anything about it. My point about that is, I think growing up and feeling different from people and wondering what that Chinese thing in my background was all about caused me to study the language and reconnect with my roots. AJ: Were there any experiences in your early life that influenced your interest in sustainability or non-profit work? AH: It’s funny, I don’t even think of myself as working in sustainability because my work covers multiple areas. It’s part environmental sustainability, it’s also human rights and it’s also women and girls. So growing up, partially because I was so bullied, and I was mortally shy, I just always had a lot of compassion for other people who were also left out. I would just automatically gravitate towards them and I would just feel really badly about them and I wanted to help them! So I was thinking about what to do with my life and I said wow, I just want to do something that helps the world, because for myself it had been a tough upbringing. I thought about being a social worker but I didn’t think it quite suited my personality. Nobody told me when I went to college that it’s really hard to get a job with just a language unless you want to be an interpreter or a translator, which was not my thing either. When I got out of college I wasn’t sure what to do. The kind of work I do now didn’t exist back then and I also had no interest in working in business because I was really interested in helping people. So I got a master’s degree in teaching English as a second language and in doing that I discovered that my shyness made it really hard for me to actually do the work. I had trouble being in front of a class for a long time, keeping them entertained. It was a really harsh discovery so I went into the nonprofit world and found a job in Chinatown in New York City. I started as the assistant of the executive director but because I was the only native English speaker on staff, they started asking me to help out with grant requests. When the time came to look for another job, I realized I was acquiring a skill set around fundraising. So the next three jobs I had were working in nonprofit. I worked for Asia Society, I worked for China Institute. I was fundraising, writing grants, doing events and after doing that for nine years that’s when I realized that was also not a great fit for my personality �because I didn’t like rejection. Fundraising just didn’t feel satisfying to me, I didn’t feel like I was having the impact I wanted to have, and I think I was too far removed from the actual work of the organizations, I wasn’t out there hands on with people or communities. When I decided to walk away from fundraising I decided just to take any old job for a couple years until I could figure out what to do with myself. By now I was already thirty-two, so I had already had a career. Long story short I ended up getting an administrative assistant job to the CEO of this tiny clothing company that I had never heard of. The reason I chose that was because growing up I used to make all my own clothes. The CEO left the company within six months, they never replaced him. It was a small and growing company so I just started helping out wherever I could. One of the things I was able to do successfully was start responding to organizations who were sending in letter asking for donations of merchandise I said, well I used to write letters like this, I know what to do with those letters, I’ll organize a system. So four years later I was given the title Community Relations Manager, and that to me was the perfect marriage of what I had been doing with this new situation and I was able to suddenly feel like I could have impact. Well, this was Eileen Fisher, and this is now my twenty-fifth year with the company. The year I got the title Community Relations Manager, 1997, Eileen Fisher made a commitment to the people in its supply chain because we were hearing all kinds of news stories about sweatshops and we thought wow, we’re so small nobody would think to include us in those articles, but we sure could’ve been, and we’d better do something about it. They were looking for someone to do something about the people in our supply chain and I got that job and I didn’t apply for it but the reason they looked at me was because of those languages I had studied! They wanted someone who had cross-cultural experience, who had lived in China and I had all of that. AJ: You just mentioned that you lived in China, could you expand on that? AH: When you’re a language major typically you do a study abroad program and at the time I was in school, I went to college in 1979. So where do you go to study Chinese in 1981, this would have been my junior year, the option was either Taiwan, Hong Kong (where they speak Cantonese, not Mandarin), or mainland China had just opened. It had opened to the West in 1977 and they had just started exchange programs in 1980 or 81. My best friend was studying Chinese and she went to Taiwan and I thought well, that’s cheating, you have to go to the real China. So, I went to China. And when I had landed in China, I had already studied Chinese for two years at that point. Nowadays I think they teach it much better but at that time it was a new language to be taught and they hadn’t figured out how to do it efficiently and my two years of Chinese language study included tons of historical articles. I knew five different ways to say invade or invasion because so much of the historical literature was based of military stuff. I also know a lot of folk tales, but I literally did not know how to say “I’m hungry” or “Where’s the bathroom.” We knew no vernacular, we didn’t study any of that. So when I landed in China I was mortified that I actually couldn’t say anything that was useful. I could give you a whole philosophical treatise on something. So I spent the first three months really miserable and then suddenly it just started clicking and my fluency picked up and I made a lot of friends. I felt like a guinea pig, I was one of four Americans segregated in our own dormitory with about twenty-five Japanese students who were mostly businessmen learning for business purposes. It was a very isolating experience, we were watched all the time. I made Chinese friends and the only reason �I was able to do that is if I don’t wear any makeup and if I dress a certain way, I can look a hundred percent Chinese. I blended in if I wanted to but it was really risky. At times I was really close to either getting myself in trouble or getting my friends in trouble because they weren’t supposed to mix with Americans. But it was an amazing year, well before the country started to modernize. It was still very communist, everyone was wearing Mao jackets, everything was rationed, there were no modern conveniences at all and we were in Shanghai. It was quite an impactful year and it did make think about going into international relations. I was at Georgetown and got a scholarship when I was finishing up my fourth year of school to study international relations at Taipei University but something happened and I wasn’t able to take advantage of it. ES: Have you been back to China since then? AH: Yes, many times. On a personal level, I did briefly marry a man who was from China, so we went and visited his family once or twice. But on a professional level, I started going back to China with this new role at the company. By then I was in my mid-thirties and it been many years since I graduated from college and my Chinese fluency was really poor. I went back and found a local Chinese language school and took classes to refresh and so I developed our early auditing protocol for our suppliers-- I will say also at the time, and even today, our US based suppliers are mostly Chinese speaking. The owners will speak English but most of the workers don’t speak a lot of English. I had to learn new vocabulary, I had never spoken about working hours, wage documentation, human rights, so I had to learn all that vocabulary. But I do get to travel to China, I don’t know if I go every year, but maybe every other year I go back. Actually I was there last year and I’m going next month. But it’s about once or every two years I go back to visit suppliers. ES: Do you think the fashion industry, and Eileen Fisher, can be a leader in the movement toward sustainable practices? AH: Many people say that we are already but there’s a lot of things that we do that are beyond what the average apparel company does. We our sights set on changing every single fiber we use over to some environmentally low-impact fiber, whether it’s organic or recycled so we’re moving in that direction. We also have very high expectations for the people in our supply chain regarding living wages and worker voice, worker happiness. We work at all levels of our supply chain, we have goals around all our fibers, the chemistry, the carbon, the water. AJ: In the past twenty-five years you’ve worked with Eileen Fisher, can you tell us about a project that you’re most proud of? AH: SO what’s interesting about that question is, this is the reality of this work-- a lot of the things that we’ve done, have failed, and we’ve learned an awful lot from it. An example is, some years back I’d always been frustrated with the fact that our suppliers here in New York City, or any of the US based suppliers, it’s not typical for them to offer health benefits, something we take for granted as employed American citizens. We looked into what it would entail for our �suppliers to offer health insurance. We worked with a health insurance provider and we got one of our suppliers to agree to a pilot program whereby we would pay a premium to the supplier for every single piece that they make which would go toward health insurance premiums for their employees. All US suppliers are relatively small, this one at the time had thirty-five or forty workers. Only one third of them signed up for health insurance. We had a representative from the health insurance company come and talk to them, it was all fully translated. The workers, it turns out, were so suspicious. They were used to going to their acupuncturist, or going to the emergency room when they had a real problem. Very few of them wanted to be bothered with any kind of forms they would have to fill out, some kind of referral form if the needed to see a certain kind of doctor. It turns out, one of the reasons they liked not having health insurance was because they could reflect a very low income and get access to government benefits. By giving them health insurance, it raised their income and suddenly they didn’t qualify for some of the benefits like government housing. So after six months all of the people who had been in the program dropped out. We realized we can’t always apply American values to other people’s experiences, whether they’re American, new Americans or in other countries. We always think about that when we go to other countries but we didn’t think about it in terms of the immigrants here. We think if they’ve come here they want the full experience but in fact they didn’t. It showed us we can’t make assumptions about what other people want or need. AJ: Do you think the purchasing power of an individual consumer can have an impact? AH: It totally can. I’m going to be speaking next week at FIT at Fashion Revolution Day, April 24. I think consumers need to exercise their power much more than we do. It’s too easy right now to buy a ten dollar H&M shirt or Forever 21. We all do it, I have two daughters, they shop, they like stuff. It takes more time to go an research and think oh my gosh, I’m tempted by that over there, I’m gonna save my money and invest in this beautiful sweater. I could either buy four over here or one over here and this one is organic and it’s going to last for ten years. That is a behavior change and a mindset change that is really hard to live up to when you’re surrounded on a day-to-day basis with the magazines and ads. However, I can tell you one time we received a single note from a single person saying how disappointed she was that we used angora and how could we do that knowing the conditions that angora rabbits are raised in. And we thought, wow we never really thought about that so our manufacturing leader went to China where the angora had come from and scheduled a tour of some angora rabbit farms. I was sufficiently appalled by the conditions of the rabbits that we dropped angora after that and just one letter from a single customer. For me, that illustrates a power that people can have if they really take the time to learn about the issue and send a note in. I doesn’t mean every single time we get a note from a customer we go and do something, but a lot of times they will wake us up to issues we weren’t aware of. ES: You mentioned you were speaking at FIT, does your company strive to work with fashion students? AH: Sure, we do a lot. Three or four years ago maybe we worked with professional organization called the council of fashion designers of America, the CFDA, and with them we organized a �competition that went out to twenty or twenty-five fashion or design schools in the country and we selected three winners. We were looking for three talented designers to come work with us for a year. Well it turned out, completely randomly, that all three we chose came from Parsons. They came and worked with us to create a line of clothing out of the clothing we were now taking back, we take back previously worn Eileen Fisher clothes and we hold on to it and we create new things out of them. Those three design students started this new line for us which we call ‘Renew,’ and it was the beginning of our whole circular initiative. But in addition to that we bring students in as interns, we go to schools and work with classes or speak to them about what we’re doing to inspire them, we provide materials to schools, leftover materials. AJ: How long has Eileen Fisher been recycling clothes? AH: We started in 2009 and we have two stand-alone stores that only sell previously worn Eileen Fisher clothing. We started by taking clothes back and reselling them but we realized that forty to fifty percent of the clothes we take back can’t actually be resold because they’re too damaged. So we keep everything and we sort it, it’s a very manual process, and we make new things out of it. So we might cut the clothing into pieces and sew it into something like a dress, a tunic or something. Or we’ll cut them into small pieces and we have a felting process that makes upholstery quality fabric. Our two stand alone stores that sell Eileen Fisher Renew clothing are in Irvington New York and Seattle. AJ: I want to move back briefly to your time at Georgetown. Did you have any mentors during your undergraduate career? AH: Not as an undergraduate, I was really undirected, that came much later in life for me. AJ: If you could change one thing that you did at Eileen Fisher, what would it be? AH: I’m not sure I can answer that specifically. What I could say is if there’s something I wish I had known how to do, but I didn’t figure this out until at least ten years into my job, I wished somebody had told me that to be successful and really good at this kind of work I do now, it would have been really good to know this. When I think about the kind of work that I do, which is environmental sustainability, human rights primarily, saying that we want to be a certain kind of company, talking with other teams in the company, talking with other businesses outside the company as an influencer, so what does that require? It actually requires very strong organizational development skills, culture change skills, because what you’re actually doing is changing people’s behavior or mindset. SO, we’ll go and speak with the owner of a factory and say, hey Mr. Li, I know you’ve been doing things this way the entire time you’ve been running this factory and maybe your father did it this way, but let me say we now know we need to do this thing differently. And he’s comfortable because he’s making money doing whatever he’s doing and we need to come in and say, ‘this is better because you’re going to help the environment, you’re going to help all these people and your story may get out on the internet, maybe get on our website.’ Convincing them, anybody in our supply chain, anyone in our whole sphere of influence, it can take many conversations, many visits, many pilot projects, trial and �error, it can take that something is the right way to go. It usually requires of them additional money, process change, pulling them out of their comfort zone. Knowing how to manage that human behavior change would have been really useful. People are coming out of college with environmental sustainability degrees, human rights degrees, but I don’t think they’re coming out of college really knowing how to work with people because really what this is all about is getting people to shift their way. And maybe that’s what business in general is all about, I’m not sure, but in this work it would be really useful so I think it should be taught in college. AJ: That kind of work is a lot like topics we’ve been studying in class that has to do with social movements, do you consider yourself part of a broader social movement? AH: I do, in certain instances we think of ourselves as activists, we do a lot of policy work, we go to Capitol Hill, someone in my team goes to pipeline protests. We really are creating a new standard for business, we’re trying to reinvent how the business of fashion should be done in this century. How do you do it in a way that not only does less harm, but eventually nourishes the environment, nourishes the planet, leaves people in a better state than when we first arrived. A lot of what we do is work that hasn’t been tried by another company and in that regard I think we’re activists. It’s definitely two steps forward, one back and it’ exhausting but it’s worth it. ES: Do you have any upcoming projects that you’re excited about? AH: There’s so many! Something that we’re talking about right now is how do we get the whole company, even people in facilities, to really embrace all our values and make their decisions through those lenses, so I feel that is the next big thing. The other big thing, I’m not directly involved in this but I’m excited about it, we did a mapping project where we tried to figure out why our carbon footprint was so high. Basically we figured out quickly that our carbon footprint is high because we airship much of our product from China. So obviously, we should not be airshipping but seashipping, why are we airshipping so much? Through the process of designing and developing the product, they end up with not enough time to send it by sea so often they send by air. Where we are right now, there’s a whole bunch of people working in the company to completely shift our internal processes to shorten the development timeline of a product, give our suppliers more time to do what we want them to do. I mentioned earlier that there’s a lot of failure in this work. Some of our suppliers, we’ve been working with them for over twenty years and yet the core issues have not changed a whole lot. Workers still get paid pretty low wages, hours are still really high, why is that, why can’t we nudge them forward? We figured that because we don’t actually give them enough time to get the product done because we’re putting too much pressure on them. We place the order, we change the order, we update the order, we placed the order for a hundred, now we want two hundred and we still need it delivered on this date. So they run out of time and they airship it, and they don’t want to tell us that they had a lot of overtime and they don’t want to tell us that they weren’t able to pay a higher wage because we’re still paying them the same original amount that we agreed upon. We realized that the suppliers were not able to do their work ethically because of what we’re doing. So we have this whole project to shift our internal process to alleviate the stress on the �suppliers and ultimately lead to higher well-being for the workers. So we’ll see, it’ll be another year or so before we see if the intend result happens. But it’s really exciting, this kind of work doesn’t happen at other companies. Section V - Interview Analysis The interview in its entirety was both meaningful and enlightening— it is not often you are given the opportunity to speak to someone with so much life experience who continues to make changes in the world daily. It was very wonderful that she had given us the chance and time to hold the interview, and Amy Hall was incredibly insightful and enthusiastic to the very end. I would say, however, that the most meaningful topic occurred during her talk of getting healthcare to those who work in the supply factories here in America and elsewhere, and the shock of realizing that most, if not all, did not want to partake in the healthcare program and would rather keep to their own customs and cultures— we cannot force American values onto others, even those who live here, and even if one believes what they are doing is for the greater good, it may not be that way towards those they wish to aid towards a more fulfilling life. I do not believe any aspects of the interview were necessarily not useful, any bit of information on her life and the story she had to tell came off as necessary and important. I think there would’ve been tons more to talk about if we had really gotten into the ins and outs of Eileen Fisher, her past careers, and even her recent trips to China which we didn’t really dissect in their entirety due to time constraints. All of the in class presentations were interesting and useful in their own ways— the careers of the women interviewed ranged through classes, cultures and societies. And it was enriching to hear all the stories told. Personally, I found the interview of the laundry owner the most fascinating, perhaps because it was significantly different than the others in that way. It was eye opening and gave us an insight into the life of someone often overlooked and regarded as insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Her life truly spoke to the idea of soft roles. She wasn’t a powerful politician, an author, a diplomat, a lawyer, a ceo. Her connection to her culture felt true and wonderful, and everything that was presented to the class was genuine. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Women in US-Asian Relations Student Oral History Project Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2018_20180418_ahall_doc_dis Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jimenez-Hudis, Aracely Seiller, Emily Hall, Amy Title A name given to the resource Amy Hall Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-04-18 Type The nature or genre of the resource text Description An account of the resource Every fall, students at Stony Brook University in class, AAS/POL 307 (Women in US-Asian Relations), set out to interview women who are committed to enhancing US-Asian relations. Women's contributions occur at many different levels of society and encompass a variety of occupations. In conducting oral history interviews, students prepare documentation for the Stony Brook University Melville Library's digital collection and, in the process, acquire deep knowledge about women's social, cultural, political, and economic roles in the United States and Asia, which includes those in Asian American communities. Each interview consists of multiple files, including: a text document and Powerpoint slides, which were converted to PDFs for this digitization project. The project is a joint effort between the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies and the University Libraries. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching Women social reformers--Asia Women social reformers--United States Oral history Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Christoff, Peggy Spitzer -- Senior Lecturer, China Studies. Director of Undergraduate Programs: Asian And Asian American Studies. Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2017 http://exhibits.library.stonybrook.edu/WUA/files/original/7869fe0fc41b98663f87e49cefbff757.pptx 991f08a6830a0e2fc191f68a471e348d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Women in US-Asian Relations Student Oral History Project Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Christoff, Peggy Spitzer -- Senior Lecturer, China Studies. Director of Undergraduate Programs: Asian And Asian American Studies. Subject The topic of the resource Asian Americans--Study and teaching; Women social reformers--Asia; Women social reformers--United States; Oral history Relation A related resource AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject; AAS_POL_307_OralHistoryProject_2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted (URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/). Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/ppt Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context aas_2016_20170109_cbrehm_master Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Description An account of the resource Every fall, students at Stony Brook University in class, AAS/POL 307 (Women in US-Asian Relations), set out to interview women who are committed to enhancing US-Asian relations. Women’s contributions occur at many different levels of society and encompass a variety of occupations. In conducting oral history interviews, students prepare documentation for the Stony Brook University Melville Library’s digital collection and, in the process, acquire deep knowledge about women’s social, cultural, political, and economic roles in the United States and Asia, which includes those in Asian American communities. Each interview consists of multiple files, including: a text document and Powerpoint slides, which were converted to PDFs for this digitization project. The project is a joint effort between the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies and the University Libraries. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lynn, James ; Desmond, John ; Brehm, Carolyn Type The nature or genre of the resource text Title A name given to the resource Carolyn Brehm