The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) is considered one of the major hubs nationally for Filipino-American studies. However, the fact that its core consists of only four tenured and tenure-track faculty members illustrates a historical disparity that exists among Asian Pacific Americans at U.S. colleges. Despite the diversity in this country's Asian Pacific American population in general, the majority of university faculty hires are of East Asian descent. Dr. Martin Manalansan IV, acting director of Asian American studies at UIUC, says the struggle among Filipinos in more recent years has centered on getting university administrators to understand how distinct Filipino American studies are. The Philippines is not perceived as a grand civilization like India or China or Japan. Instead, it is seen as some sad copy of the post-colonial West. The academic struggle is made more difficult by social misperceptions that Filipinos do not have a distinct culture. As the Filipino faculty core has grown and evolved, however, the number of graduate students studying diaspora applying to UIUC has increased as well.