Letters to the Editor | Ethnic Studies lacking in curriculum

The Ethnic Studies Coalition (ESC) of Vassar College believes that an institution that claims to be committed to diversity and academic excellence must take active steps to improve the ethnic studies curriculum and faculty of color representation. It is important for students representing all majors to have access to a wide breadth of information reflecting the works of people of all colors. Ethnic studies courses act as part of an attempt to transform the racist educational system from the ground up, through courses that examine both individual areas of study in Asian American, Latino, African American, and Native American Studies, and those that are comparative. Ethnic studies allows for a breadth of understanding regarding race in relation to other social formations, as well as transnationally and globally. It can draw from multiple disciplines, which many times exclude the study of race/ethnicity from the perspectives of political science, history, sociology, anthropology, English, gender studies and so on. These courses allow students to better understand experiences and communities of marginalized racial communities by examining issues including history, social organization, culture, and intra/inter-group relations.

The ESC has found that Vassar has failed to achieve goals outlined in its mission statement. These include the “encouragement of excellence and respect for diversity,” “the recognition of the different kinds of knowledge and their scope,” “to maintain and support a distinguished and diverse faculty in their commitment to teaching,” and a commitment to “working toward a more just, diverse, egalitarian, and inclusive college community where all members feel valued and are fully empowered to claim a place in...our shared working, living, and learning.” Vassar’s affirmative action policy reads, “the passive avoidance of overt discrimination is not sufficient to further employment opportunity for qualified members of groups formerly underrepresented.” Vassar should “seek out qualified candidates for appointment and promotion among minority-group members and women for positions where they have been inadequately represented in the past.” Asian American and Native American studies “correlate” in the American Culture Program, as well as the Latino/a Studies component of the LALS Program are virtually absent of courses and needed faculty. The failure to retain successful, popular faculty of color (especially those who teach Ethnic Studies) also needs to be improved. It is important to facilitate an environment that is sensitive to faculty needs in which departments and administration do not tokenize these particular faculty members, and do not imbue hostile and resistant work environments to these faculty members. Adjuncts, post-doctoral fellows, and Ph.D instructors/professors are not sufficient substitutes to ensure the presence of Ethnic Studies courses; in addition these “unstable” positions symbolize the failure of departments/administration to legitimize the space of Ethnic Studies at Vassar.

After meetings with Vassar College administration and staff, in conjunction with research suggested from dialogue with President Fergusson, the ESC finds that an attempt to correct the issues being presented must include the following practical, reasonable and equitable solution, created by examining models at other institutions of higher education and the rhetoric used in Vassar’s mission statement.

1. The hiring of at least two tenured faculty of color in either comparative ethnic studies or from an ethnic studies specialty within the next two years to oversee the development of ethnic studies at Vassar. 2. The hiring of six professors: two for Native American studies, two for Latina/Latino studies, and two for Asian American studies courses, over a span of ten years. Each should be hired for a tenure-track position. This long period allows Vassar to plan budgeting for the positions for a maximum of four years, search for quality professors, and eventually begin to provide Vassar with increased intellectual and racial diversity experience. The guaranteed tenure positions will show Vassar increasing equity among colleges and universities as well as guarantee students the presence of quality, experienced, and specialized scholars. 3. Each professor hired should be: a specialist in the area of ethnic studies they will teach to improve the quality of teaching and a person of color. It is vital to give priority to the hiring of professors of color for ethnic studies due to the politics of representation. In addition, these professors of color oftentimes serve as much needed advisors for students of color. 4. An ethnic studies requirement, as modeled from Oberlin College, “based on the belief that well-educated persons in today’s interdependent world should study and analyze cultures other than their own.”

Jason Wu ’07, one of the spearhead organizers of the ESC has met with Dean of the Faculty (Sharp) and has been assured a response to ESC's proposal for: the hire of two senior faculty members to teach Ethnic Studies, the retention of Linta Varghese, the current Mellon post-doctoral fellow in American Culture, and the adoption of a multicultural studies requirement by Spring Break.

—James Cantres '08,
David Mata '07, Victor Monterrossa '07,
Isella Ramirez '07, Jason Wu '07