Running head: ASIAN AMERICAN LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

A theme throughout the research on college students and higher education discourse on race is that Asian Americans 1 are an understudied group (Hune & Chan, 1997). Furthermore, the understanding of leadership for this population is limited because few studies have One reason underlying the absence of attention toward Asian American leadership might be due to stereotypes that Asian Americans are unassertive, passive, and quiet (Zane, Sue, Hu, & Kwon, 1991), and therefore lacking leadership skills. Another reason may be due to the narrow definitions of leadership based on characteristics of those traditionally in positions of power, reflecting a predominantly White, male, upper-or middle-class leadership orientation (Kezar & Moriarty, 2000). Illuminating Asian American student development needs and outcomes will help scholars, practitioners, and policy makers better understand and serve this growing undergraduate population. Indeed, Asian American student enrollment at a range of postsecondary institutions in the U.S. has risen dramatically over the last two decades, more than doubling from 500,000 in 1990 to over one million in 2004; in comparison, the enrollment for Whites during that same time period grew from nearly 10.7 million to 11.4 million (National Center for Education Statistics, 2005). Such educational enrollment figures underscore Asian Americans' strong college-going trends and point to the significance of studying this group in higher education. 1 The author acknowledges the limited utility of " Asian American " as a fixed umbrella category in research and policy making. However, the data in this study could not be disaggregated by specific ethnic subgroups, and it is unclear whether Pacific Islander students identified themselves as " Asian/Asian American " in the survey. Thus, the term " Asian American " is used to describe this student population.