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SFSU
San Francisco State University recently celebrated its role in the creation of ethnic studies. |
ASAM NEWS
In 1969, a strike waged by students at San Francisco State College led to the establishment of the nation’s first Ethnic Studies program. The same year students at UC Berkeley had similar success after protests there.
It’s clear the battle for Ethnic Studies and an inclusive education is not over as universities question the need for degrees, departments and budgets devoted to the study of the history, literature, psychology and social studies pertaining to the United States' minority populations.
This month, SF State University announced the establishment of a Pacific Islander minor while in the state legislature, a bill to make ethnic studies a requirement for graduation will be heard this week in the Assembly appropriation committee.
Last month, SFSU celebrated the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Ethnic Studies at the school.
SFSU President Leslie Wong was among the many Asian American alumni and faculty at the event.
“I think the future is ready for us to get out there and show other campuses in the state how to do the same,” Wong said. “I always worry that this is the first and the last College of Ethnic Studies.”
Across the country 13 Yale professors who had threatened to resign over the university’s lack of commitment to ethnic studies have withdrawn their threat following a change of heart from the administration.RELATED
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“I take great joy in imagining the future of the Ethnicity, Race, and Migration Program at Yale and our new capacity to partner with institutions and colleagues beyond this University,” wrote Schmidt Camacho in a statement. “I am grateful that our faculty remains committed to teaching and mentoring students interested in what has become one of our university’s most dynamic and fastest growing undergraduate majors.”
The Yale Daily News reports the university recently granted 5 new faculty positions to the program. The 13 professors who had threatened to resign in March have now formally withdrawn their protest.
Meanwhile, at San Francisco State, demands inspired by a 10 day hunger strike by students in 2016 have led to the establishment of a Critical Pacific Islands and Oceania Studies minor. The program which will be part of the College of Ethnic Studies will begin in the fall.
“This is a historic program that I am so proud to share that I have been able to contribute to,” says Levalasi Loi-On , now a student coordinator with the university’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Student Services. “This program means that Pacific Islander students, who continue to be marginalized and underrepresented and have so many hurdles to graduation, have a space in the College of Ethnic Studies at SFSU.”
“Our students are very much interested in social justice,” said Amy Sueyoshi, newly appointed dean at the College of Ethnic Studies at SFSU. “I look forward to advancing the University’s initiatives around student success and graduation through a high-impact curriculum that is relevant to the students."
This week a bill that would strengthen ethnic studies programs at 23 California State University campuses will be heard before the Assembly Appropriations Committee. The bill would make taking a 3 unit ethnic studies course a requirement to graduate. The California Faculty Association is supporting the legislation, according to The Pioneer.
“I think that what we provide is a way to think about the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality in a deep and nuanced way, both historically and in the present time and then that discussion leads to considerations of how we go about constructing a society that is not built on the oppression of people of color,” said Luz Calvo, chair of the Ethnic Studies Department at California State University, East Bay in an interview with The Pioneer.
Views From the Edge contributed to this report.
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