This weekend Oberlin Korean Students Association (OKSA) is sponsoring what it hopes to be the first biennial student conference on Korean student concerns. The conference is entitled "Closing the Gap."

The intent of the conference is to explore differences within the Korean/Korean-American community, why those differences continue to exist and how to "close the gap" between differences.

OKSA co-chairs senior Michelle Shim and sophomore Ki-Won Nahm have been planning the conference since last semester with the help of Narges Kakalia, Asian-American intern at the Multicultural Resource Center. Shim said many faculty members have also been very supportive of the conference.

OKSA's mission is to educate students about issues which involve Korean and Korean-American people, especially in light of the lack of Korean language classes, Korean Studies or Asian-American Studies at Oberlin.

Conference organizers hope to build a network of Korean students among college students in the Midwest and on the East Coast. To help faciliate this network building, they have invited students from the Universties of Michigan and Illinois, as well as Case Western, Northwestern, Ohio State and Cincinatti Universities.

Although Shim thinks bringing these students to the conference is important, she thinks Oberlin students' participation is necessary. "It's more important that Oberlin people go because that's what [the conference] is for," she said.

Events at the conference include lectures on womens' roles in the Kam Church, the emergence of coalition politics and the emergence of conflict between North and South Korea as well as several others. Speakers include Mary Yu Danico from the University of Hawaii, David Namkoong of Cleveland State University, Edward Park, professor of sociology at the University of Southern California and Jung Ha Kim, professor of sociology at Georgia State University.