Battle Over an Ethnic Studies Department May Emerge

They have one at Berkeley. And at Wisconsin. At Yale. Stanford. And even Princeton is starting one.

But not Harvard.

Around the country, ethnic studies programs have gained legitimacy in recent years, as faculty emphasize new types of multi-cultural research and students line up to study the experiences of minority groups.

To their backers, ethnic studies programs--and more specifically focused areas such as Chicano studies--offer a valuable and different perspective on the American experience.

"It is moving slowly, but some of the big schools are starting to recognize that it is going to be a multi-cultural society in the 21st century and they need ethnic studies programs," says Larry Trujillo, a professor at Berkeley.

But despite the high volume of scholarship generated by these programs and the visible student enthusiasm, some academics continue to say that ethnic studies cannot be viewed as an independent discipline.

And that attitude is nowhere as visible as at Harvard, where administrators say that, despite a newly established visiting professor program in ethnic studies, they do not see the need for a separate department.

Says Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education David Pilbeam, "I don't see that it makes an effective concentration. I don't think that that's the way to address the concerns of undergraduates."

Pilbeam is heading a faculty committee, appointed last fall by Dean of the Faculty A. Michael Spence, to recruit visiting scholars for the ethnic studies program that is supposed to bring one full-time visitor to campus each year.

Students, however, see the new program as a case of too little, too late and have promised to pressure the faculty next year.

Members of the Minority Students Alliance, which has lobbied throughout the past two years for a visiting professorship in Chicano Studies, say they will soon propose that Harvard join the swelling ranks of universities who have added official Chicano studies departments to their course catalogs.

But the students will have a difficult time persuading the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to take such a step. According to Edith Ramirez '89, Spence "did not seem the least bit interested" when approached with the request for a Chicano studies department or degree-granting committee.

And, when asked whether the ethnic studies program might result in a permanent department, Spence said in a recent interview, "I really don't know how I feel about it, and I don't think I even know enough yet about what is going on in the various [ethnic studies] disciplines."

What Spence has done is respond to student requests by remaking them in ways more acceptable to the often tradition-bound faculty, students say.

Last fall, he created an ethnic studies program to include courses in Native American, Asian-American and Hispanic-American culture.

The program will bring two professors to the University each year for one semester each, and Spence estimates that it will increase the number of courses in ethnic studies from the two which were offered this year to four or five each year.

Harvard has recruited two scholars for the 1990-'91 academic year, but Pilbeam says the committee was unable to get any full-time visiting professors for next year."

In the fall of 1990, Juan Bruce-Novoa, a professor from Trinity University, will teach a survey course in Chicano literature and a course on methods of research on the Chicano novel.

In the spring semester, Rodolfo De La Garza, a political scientist from the University of Texas at Austin, will teach two courses in the Government Department.

But despite the new ethnic studies program, Harvard students who made the original proposal say the program is too broad to meet the curricular needs of those undergraduates interested in studying different racial groups.

"We don't feel that it is adequate simply having two visting professors each year for one semester each. It does not meet the students' curricular needs," says Ramirez. "The independent departments are not taking much initiative to find people, and that concerns us. We're going to try to come up with some proposals next year for a department."

And scholars around the country echo Ramirez's concerns, saying that the creation of an ethnic studies department confers legitimacy and financial security on fields which might otherwise be neglected.

"You need to make the other disciplines well-rounded, but you need the interdisciplinary focus that would come from an autonomous department as well," says Trujillo. "I would argue that in neglecting ethnic studies you are deliberately preventing a discipline from developing."

Berkeley Professor Mario Varrera agrees, saying "it makes a big difference to have your own curriculum and funding. It allows you to develop a kind of coherence that is not possible otherwise."

But if there is a struggle to create a permanent department at Harvard, as administrators have indicated, it would not be the first such battle.

Bruce-Novoa, the first scholar who will come to Harvard under the new program, started the Chicano Studies program at Yale in the early '70s, and he says he fought the administration for several years before they would establish a permanent program with faculty and financial support.

"You have to take whatever you can get. What often happens is they don't realize how much interest there is until they give the classes," Bruce-Novoa says. "But that the students have to prove to the administration through their own interest. Where there will always be trouble is in convincing them to give a permanent appointment and permanent funds."

Not all scholars, though, advocate separate departments for ethnic studies. Instead, they say multi-cultural perspectives must be incorporated into the existing curriculum. Otherwise, they caution, ethnic studies will be marginalized--and lose its potential impact.

Assistant Professor of Romance Languages and Literature Efrain Kristal, who signed the original student proposal for a Chicano Studies visiting professorship, says he thinks students should avoid calls for an independent program.

"The idea is to integrate, one way or another, the Mexican-American point of view," Kristal says. "It is important to engage the main areas of study in interesting dialogue with ethnicity."

But regardless of how the debate over Chicano studies is played out at Harvard, it is clear that the academic community has started paying heed to those who investigate various ethnic experiences.

Says Trujillo, "It is certainly a legitimate discipline in and of itself. There has been an ongoing debate among intellectuals, but I think we've clearly established ourselves as a discipline."