Students say Kal Penn’s Asian American Studies Class A Hit

If you may recall, last year, I reported that Penn was going to be teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. Not only is Kal Penn a successful actor, but he’s a pretty good college lecturer, according to the University of Pennlysvania’s independent student newspaper, The Daily Pennsylvanian, reporting in “Students say Kal Penn’s Asian American studies class was a hit:”

“Actor Kalpen Modi-more fondly known as Kal Penn – conquered Hollywood after his hit movie Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. But, with students raving about his Asian American Studies class as the semester ends, it seems Modi has conquered something perhaps more significant than teenage humor: the field of academia. “I was a little skeptical at first about what credentials gave him the right to teach a class at Penn,” said a College senior and Cinema Studies major …”By the end of the class, I realized it wasn’t his academic credentials that got him here, it was his experience in the field – which is equally valuable,” she said. Modi, who served as an adjunct professor in the Asian American Studies Department, taught ASAM 109: Images of Asian Americans in the Media this past semester. His interest in teaching at Penn stemmed from the lectures he had given about how race and gender identity play out in the media, in addition to Penn’s robust ASAM program which Modi discovered last November.”

Too bad Penn’s lectures aren’t online (or maybe they are?). It would be really interesting to hear Penn’s, as well as other Asian American actors and actresses about their experiences on Asian Americans in media and how they view Asian American history and studies from an academic standpoint.