Sacramento State will be hosting a forum on Asian arts, culture, education, history and Asian-American experiences on Tuesday.

The forum, “Asia – Facing East: Global Learning and Conversations,” will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Library. It will include discussions, a movie screening and a performance from a world champion unicyclist.

The forum was put together by the Honors Program in association with Sac State’s Omicron Chapter of Phi Beta Delta, the society for international scholars. Among the participants are Sac State professors, students and guest speakers from Sac State and outside Sacramento, who have traveled to, studied and conducted research in Asia.

“(The purpose of this forum is to) promote this whole idea of global international understanding by having students and faculty talk about issues that are happening today in our world,” Arnaud said.

Different events will take place in different sections of the Library. Some of the discussions and reading will take place in the classrooms in the Library, performances will be in the Library Quad, and the documentary showing will be in the Library gallery.

“You can jump into different events, depending on your interest,” said Vanessa Arnaud, a professor in Sac State’s Honors Program and one of the organizers of the event.

A guest presentation will be a screening of the documentary “The Oak Park Story,” by two professors from San Francisco. It is about three families from different backgrounds who worked together to win a settlement against the landlord of their Oakland slum.

One of the discussions will be among professors, students and emeritus staff, who studied in China, Japan and Korea and will focus on their experiences there.

“Nothing is ever the same in your perspective once you study abroad,” said Virginia Dixon, professor in Sac State’s Department of Education Leadership and Policy Studies. “I think studying abroad and the Honors Program working with the Omicron chapter here of Phi Beta Delta can simply provide this sort of unique opportunity and see how it works for people.”

Dixon, who is part of Phi Beta Delta, is among the Sac State professors who will be presenting. For the past 20 years, she has worked with principals of Chinese schools for children with special needs and with China’s Ministry of Education.

“My presentation will be very informal, a chance where people can scrutinize what I did, how I did it and to hear some of the details about life and its predictability and its non predictability,” Dixon said.

Also among the events in the forum are a presentation by Sac State chemistry professor Brad Baker, who will be discussing chemistry-related research he had conducted in China and his experiences there, and a unicycling performance by a Japanese student from another university.

Some students from Arnaud’s class will also be presenting original short stories based on Confucius’ readings.

“When you give an assignment to students and they know that they have to give a presentation at a conference or at a forum it shows them the importance of the assignment,” Arnaud said.

Other student presentations include a singing performance by students from a Japanese class, a discussion on the ideas of Bhagavad-Gita, the Hindi equivalent of the Bible, and a demonstration from the Filipino Martial Arts Club.

Dixon said having different people involved is beneficial because they would have a better understanding of what is happening in Asian countries.

“Because what happens now in Japan or in China in Pakistan, really does have an impact down the road and maybe not so far down the road to things in my life and your life even though we may not see them in the next six months,” she said.

Arnaud, who has been organizing the leadership forum twice a year for the past few years, said if the Phi Beta Delta society would be interested in doing a forum like this again, she would like to have a forum on a different country every year. She said organizers have talked about possibly centering the event on Africa next year.

She also said organizers of the forum have been trying to publicize the event as much as possible, mostly around campus but also outside the school as well, Arnaud said.

“We’re trying to open it to everyone. The more involvement from the campus the better. I like seeing events where a lot of students are interested,” Arnaud said.

Cayla Gales can be reached at [email protected].