Ethnic Studies Coalition continues on campus

Juliana Kiyan Assistant News Editor

“Ethnic Studies at Vassar,” a student-faculty conversation held Wednesday April 5, spotlighted the campaign of the Ethnic Studies Coalition (ESC). The ESC was formed last year by a group of students seeking to amend the lack of Asian American, Latino/a, Native American, and comparative Ethnic Studies courses available. The Coalition and administration have received mixed results and reviews about the future of an Ethnic Studies program.

The ESC was formed last year by a group of students seeking to amend the lack of Ethnic Studies courses available met success in late February when the Vassar Student Association (VSA) Council passed a resolution on Ethnic Studies. The resolution supports the idea of strengthening and promoting course offerings in Ethnic Studies at the College.

Dean of the Faculty Ron Sharp agreed that the Vassar is in need of a broader Ethnic Studies curriculum, but felt that it should be implemented by adding such courses to current departments.
Sharp said that he remains unconvinced that a separate, larger Ethnic Studies program would “make the best sense for Vassar.” He added that the College offers many courses in different departments dealing with various ethnic groups in the U.S., although these areas of study are generally underrepresented at Vassar.

Ethnic Studies currently exists as a multidisciplinary concentration within the American Culture program. Classes that relate to Ethnic Studies presently span American Culture, English, Film, History, Latin American and Latino/a Studies, Sociology, and others.

Students have responded to the ESC in various ways. The debate has included issues ranging from the cost of a new program, to the belief that another expanded multidisciplinary approach would be repetitive, since the College offers multidisciplinary programs already. Others disagree with the ESC’s call for the College to hire more minority professors.

The ESC has also distributed fliers, one of which contains the claim that there are no Native American Studies Courses nor scholars at the College. However, Professor of History James Merrell is a scholar in Native American Studies and is teaching History 366: “The Indians’ New World” this semester.

The ESC resolution states that minority professors would be “much needed advisors for students of color” and would reflect well on Vassar’s role in diversity. Vassar’s affirmative action and equal opportunity and employment policy states that applicants for employment are recruited and hired “on the basis of personal merit…no distinctions are made in compensation, promotion, and transfer because of the employee’s race.” Following it is the inclusion of Vassar’s practice of seeking “qualified candidates for appointment and promotion among minority group members and women for positions where they have been inadequately represented in the past.”

In a letter dated Feb. 25 to Wu, Sharp wrote “While we can and will make every effort to identify, recruit, and hire faculty of color, it is simply illegal to stipulate at the outset that for any particular position ‘each professor hired should be a person of color.’ It is also crucial to recall here that our aim is to hire faculty of color in all fields, not just Ethnic Studies.”

While the Vassar Student Association passed a resolution in support of the ESC and many organizations have signed the ESC petition, the Vassar College Democrats have not taken an official stance regarding the ESC’s proposal. The Democrats said that while they support the diversification of Vassar and its curriculum, they did not agree that the stipulation of hiring professors of color should be included in the proposal.

“Some saw that demand as trying to address two issues at once, one being the lack of diversity among the faculty and one being the lack of diversity in the curriculum,” said Vassar College Democrats President Morgan Warners ’08.

The ESC’s proposal for a multicultural studies requirement, modeled from Oberlin College, will be taken to the Committee on Curricular Policy, according to Sharp.

Vassar’s peer institutions have also experienced debates about adding new programs. At Williams College in 2004, the administration added a Latino/a Studies concentration after more than a decade of student strikes.