Andrew N. Le will serve as the UCLA CSEAS representative on the first GETSEA Graduate Student Advisory Council, formed under the consortium for Graduate Education and Training in Southeast Asian Studies.

The consortium for Graduate Education and Training in Southeast Asian Studies (GETSEA) recently announced the names of eight students selected to serve on the first GETSEA Graduate Student Advisory Council. Andrew N. Le, PhD student in Sociology at UCLA, will serve as the UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies representative on the Council for 2021.

GETSEA was awarded a four-year grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, through its Luce Initiative on Southeast Asia (LuceSEA), to foster greater cross-institutional collaboration in the field of Southeast Asian studies.  Establishing a Graduate Student Advisory Council is a critical element in engaging member institutions and ensuring that the needs and perspectives of graduate students are part of GETSEA projects from the outset.

Dr. Nancy Peluso, Director of the Center for Southeast Asia Studies at the University of California, Berkeley will serve as faculty advisor to the council. The GETSEA Graduate Assistant is Michael Miller, a Ph.D. student in history at Cornell University, who serves ex-offico as the coordinator for the council. At the first business meeting of the council, Ren Chao (University of Michigan) was elected as Chair and Alex Mabanta (UC Berkeley) as Vice-Chair. 

The GETSEA consortium is made up of the Southeast Asia centers or programs at eight universities, all of which are federally-funded National Resource Centers. The GETSEA Steering Committee is composed of the faculty director of each center.

The GETSEA Graduate Student Advisory Council is made up of graduate students representing each of the eight member institutions: Emily Donald (Cornell), Dan McCoy (Northern Illinois University), Ren Chao (University of Michigan), Alex Mabanta, (UC Berkeley), Andrew N. Le (UCLA), Adrian Alarilla (University of Hawaii at Manoa), Long Tran (University of Washington), and Chris Hulshof (University of Wisconsin, Madison). The Council will serve as a vital link to the graduate student communities at each institution.  

The Council will aid the GETSEA consortium in its mission to enhance graduate education in Southeast Asian studies across North America. Core GETSEA activities include: facilitating and funding greater cross-institutional access to Southeast Asian language training; expanding in-depth curricular opportunities through non-credit online mini-courses; coordinating and enriching academic programming through joint events, lectures, and discussion forums; and providing graduate students with greater access to mentoring and opportunities for professional development.

The efforts and insights of each member of the GETSEA Graduate Student Advisory Council will contribute to these efforts.