Ivy Profs Stress Importance of Ethnic Studies

Correction appended.

Professors at Brown, Princeton, the University of California-Berkeley, and Dartmouth have joined students who authored a report on the state of ethnic studies at Columbia report in emphasizing the importance of the discipline in a liberal arts education.

The authors, who are majoring within the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, released a report last week calling Columbia's current ethnic studies program inadequate and recommending the creation of an ethnic studies department, hiring power for CSER, and increased course offerings.

The report compared Columbia's ethnic studies program with those of peer institutions including Brown, Princeton, and Dartmouth, as well as leaders in the field such as Berkeley.

Professors at schools across the country agreed that the ability for an ethnic studies program to hire its own faculty-rather than relying on other departments' hires-was crucial to its development.

"Ethnic studies has its own kind of teaching style and critical approach to society that is often not shared by some of the other departments," said Nelson Maldonado-Torres, assistant professor of ethnic studies at Berkeley. "You have to negotiate with programs that may be doubtful about the theoretical bases of ethnic studies." He added that, in their hiring practices, these programs sometimes "make compromises to what is unique to ethnic studies."

Maldonado-Torres said that the student report confirmed his previous knowledge of CSER. "It has very talented people, but at the same time, is very limited in what it offers in the amount of faculty," he said.

Berkeley's ethnic studies department has 26 core faculty members, ten of whom are tenured. Berkeley also offers a Ph.D. program in ethnic studies.

According to the report, CSER has 7 core faculty members and offered four courses this semester. CSER's Web site lists 8 core faculty members. The director, Claudio Lomnitz, is the only tenured faculty member.

Lomnitz said in a written statement that he regarded the ethnic studies report as a "political document, rather than an invitation for an intellectual discussion."

"I do not share this group of students' support for the creation of an academic department for Ethnic Studies," he wrote.

He added that "the student report makes no mention of the various initiatives that have been undertaken by CSER during this year," citing panel discussions, public lectures, and curricular reforms that have taken place at the Center.

"The comparison that the student report draws to other institutions says nothing about whether the broad project of creating ethnic studies departments-which are PH.D. granting, free-standing academic departments, rather than interdisciplinary centers, such as those that we have-has in fact been successful," he wrote.

One of the report's other recommendations was an increase in Native American studies course offerings at Columbia. This semester, Columbia offered no courses in Native American studies.

"As a historian, I regard Native American history as fundamental to understanding human experiences on this continent," said Colin Calloway, chair of the Native American studies department at Dartmouth. "I would find a curriculum with no Native American studies a curriculum that has a hole in it."

Dartmouth's Native American studies department, which possesses full hiring power, offered 27 Native American studies courses this semester.

Calloway agreed that having independent hiring power ensures that key courses are not neglected. This semester at Columbia, two ethnic studies courses were cancelled due to lack of funding, including introduction to comparative ethnic studies-a requirement for the major.

"For a student to sign up for a major or minor, they need to know that the courses needed to satisfy that major will be offered," Calloway said. "If you have no faculty of your own, but are really depending on people from other departments ... and often the priorities of the departments take precedence, it's very difficult to ensure that those course are offered every year."

Maldonado-Torres said creating an ethnic studies department requires widespread university support. "You need the commitment of administrators from the president to the provost to the deans, and you need also a lot of money for that program," he said.

Some of the report's authors said they felt that improving the ethnic studies program was not one of Columbia's priorities. "I feel there's a very strong sense of complacency from the administration when it comes to building ethnic studies," Christien Tompkins, CC '08 and one of the authors, said. "I feel like it's not a question of how much effort they put into having the best political science in the world. ... They don't seem to be striving to have the best ethnic studies department."

According to provost Alan Brinkley, the creation of an ethnic studies department would require the approval of the arts and sciences faculty, vice president of arts and sciences Nicholas Dirks, the University Senate, University President Lee Bollinger, Columbia's Board of Trustees, and the state of New York.

The report also recommended an immediate cluster hire of at least five new professors through the Office of the Vice Provost for Diversity Initiatives.

"I definitely support further faculty lines connected to CSER and to IRAAS [Institute for Research in African American Studies] and would see those lines as supporting the larger diversity objectives of the university," said vice provost for diversity initiatives Jean Howard in a written statement.

Noliwe Rooks, associate director of Princeton's Center for African American studies and adjunct professor at IRAAS said that the Institute was similar to Princeton's program before the University's Center for African American studies was established in fall 2006.

Departmental status for IRAAS was another of the report's recommendations. Rooks said that hiring power was key for the development of a strong African American Studies program, but added that IRAAS has strengths, such as hiring power, that Princeton's center does not. She praised IRAAS's commitments to the surrounding community, citing the Institute's Malcom X Project and Center for Contemporary Black History.

Matthew Garcia, associate professor of ethnic studies at Brown said that hiring power was the most important factor in developing an ethnic studies program. "The ability for an ethnic studies program to hire a general faculty is really the most serious factor in facilitating ethnic studies on any campus."

CORRECTION: The article "Ivy Profs Stress Importance of Ethnic Studies" (April 27) incorrectly stated that the Institute for Research in African-American Studies has faculty hiring power. Said hiring power actually belongs to Princeton's center for African-American studies.