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For immediate release                   Contact: Debbie Selinsky
Dec. 7, 1994                            (919) 681-8055
                                        SelinskyD@
                                             mail01.adm.duke.edu


DUKE AND OTHER TRIANGLE UNIVERSITIES TO
PLAY HOST TO 1995 ASIAN STUDENT UNION CONFERENCE


         DURHAM, N.C. -- More than 1,000 students from across the
region are expected to attend the East Coast Asian Study Union
annual conference, to be held at Duke University Feb. 17-19.  The
conference, touted by organizers as the largest Asian-American
student event of its kind in U.S. history, will focus on inner city
Asian Americans and their problems in the nation's metropolitan
areas.
         Earlier in the year, Duke students teamed up with students
from North Carolina State University and the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill to bid to host the conference in Durham. 
According to Duke student Darren Jer, coordinator for the 1995
conference, the upcoming event marks the first time the
organization's conference has been held in the South.
         The East Coast Asian Student Union was founded in 1977 and
is the oldest and largest non-profit college Asian-American
organization of its kind.  Comprising more than 50 member colleges
from across the east coast, ECASU seeks to promote a sense of unity
among Asian-Pacific Americans, build and strengthen Asian-Pacific
American student organizations and work toward achieving equality
for Asian-Pacific Americans in the United States, according to
officials.
         Jer said the two primary goals for holding the event at
Duke are to increase Asian-American enrollment at the university
and to help revitalize and promote the national reputation of
ECASU, which has a history of activism and accomplishment.
         "Currently, Duke attracts just as many top Asian-American
high school applicants as any of our competing schools in the
Northeast," he said.  "However, because of our geographic location
... many of those who are accepted refuse Duke for northern
schools. We hope that by playing host to this major conference that
Duke's reputation among the Asian-American community will change
and grow, eventually trickling down to future prospective
students."
         He added that the goals for the conference are in keeping
with the local chapter's goals to make Duke "a new center of the
Asian- American movement." 
                              -----
         For registration information on "Exposing the Plight of
Asian- Pacific Americans in our nation's inner cities," contact
Grace Chen, (919) 613-0720 (gac1@acpub.duke.edu), or Jerry Ku,
(919) 613- 2077 (jk10@acpub.duke.edu).
                               ###