Faculty
Pass CAS Program
by Ariella Cohen
Comparative
American Studies became the Colleges newest academic program
in a unanimous faculty vote at Tuesdays College Faulty meeting.
The interdisciplinary program addresses race, class, gender and
sexuality in American society and culture, approaching identity
formation in the U.S. by examining the trajectories of Latino Americans,
African Americans, Asian Americans and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and
Transgender people.
Students, clad in black-markered CAS Now! T-shirts,
offeredfaculty members stickers and balloons as they passed into
the meeting. This huddle of cheering, sign-clutching students was
familiar to faculty members who had attended recent meetings addressing
other issues of student concern such as the MRC. On those occasions,
like Tuesday, students felt a need to be seen.
We came today to show that there are a lot of people who support
CAS and put faces behind the words, senior Tarika Powell said.
CAS will require at least another year before students are able
to major in the program. EPPC ranked the programs two new
faculty requests as top priority, but the tenure track
positions in Latino Studies and LGBT Theory still require the approval
of Faculty Council before the hiring process can begin.
We wont be in a position to offer required CAS courses
this fall, [because] we would prefer to have the new professors
teach the intro class and the research method course
.We dont
have all the pieces to be up and running, Professor of Sociology
and CAS committee member Bill Norris said.
Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences Bob Geitz opened conversation
on the long-anticipated program proposal. The program will
provide the intellectual framework for issues that create much noise
on campus, not much thought, Geitz said.
Already existing classes such as Asian American History,
The Political Economy of Gender in Advanced Capitalism,
Advanced Topics in Race and Ethnic Relations and Contemporary
African American Literature come together under CASs
rubric. According to the program proposal: [CASs] unifying
focus is the study of the American experience or more accurately
the American experiences from the perspective of groups that have
been systematically excluded from the enters of political, economic
and cultural power over the past four centuries.
A CAS major will consist of thirty credits including a required
introductory level course, Theories and Methods of Comparative Analysis
and one seminar. CAS Majors will be required to study at least two
groups in depth, taking at least six credit hours at the 200 or
300 level for each of the chosen groups.
From the onset, faculty discussion focused on the programs
place in academia, one professor opening conversation with a question
of the programs origins.
CAS is the kind of progression of the American Studies programs.
Now at Amherst they have American Studies that emphasizes race,
class and gender...Weslyn and Williams have moved their American
Studies closer to the model we are envisioning, CAS committee
member and Professor of History Gary Kornblyth responded.
The American quotient of the programs name threw
some faculty members off, professors pointing out that the programs
offerings included seminars on Latin American and Caribbean
culture and voicing confusion on how courses would be deemed suitable
for such a program.
The title Comparative Identity Studies would sound more to
me like the central theoretical and pedagogical theme of the program,
Professor of Politics Ronald Kahn said.
Faculty members who had worked on the program felt that the tensions
and ambiguities raised in discussion cut to heart of the studys
substance.
The notion of a nation- state, boundaries, borders, I think
that is one of the central questions of such a program. It seems
to me that this is what the program is about, looking at the way
the conception of nation manifests itself, Professor of Womans
Studies and member of the CAS committee Wendy Kozol said.
One professor commented that the discussion sounded more political
then intellectual.
In the midst of this conversation on the intent of CAS, Professor
of Anthropology Jack Glazier made a motion to change its title to
Identity studies before voting on it as a program. This motion met
little support.
Committee members argued that the specification of American
studies was important to the study. The notion that we are
talking about groups finding themselves in the US, Kornblyth
reiterated, emphasizing that any name-changes should come later
in the programs planning.
Committee member and professor of History Pablo Mitchell pointed
out that Institutionally, CAS is the space where we can have
these conversations [on borders and defining nation].
Dye was the first to directly address Glaziers motion. I
argue against the motion to change the programs name. As I
understand it from the faculty members who have designed this program,
there is an importance to the American in the title.
There is also a question of collegiality. When department names
have been changed that is a decision of the faculty in the department.
I think it important that we call on the faculty who put this together
to elect what to call the program, she said, effectual ly
closing the argument.
Its your name. We cant call you Fred, Although i feel
that we could call you several things its your name, Professor
of Cinema Studies at Day said. Upon this temporal settlement, the
faculty appeared ready to vote on the program, Faculty approved
the program unanimously.
Now that the program has passed, and the year is winding down, the
question of faculty hiring is central in both student and faculty
minds.
Our big question is if the college will bring these new professors,
I cant envision the program without the two positions, they
complete the concentrations, senior and CAS committee member
Grace Han said. One of the major things we have been working
on is retention of faculty and staff of color and bringing these
two professors would be a step. One of the problems is the lack
if institutional support [for faulty and staff of color] this program,
coming from the institution, will provide that space. It can take
some stress off the MRC of being the only place to provide multiculturalism
on campus, she continued.
The eight faculty members, Dean of Arts and Sciences Clayton Koppes
and President Dye that serve on Faculty Council makes all final
decisions on hiring and retaining professors. The hiring process
typically lasts over a year and is hampered by financial concerns.
Many departments are in need of new professors but the College can
only fill so many spots annually.
Classics has asked for an additional position and EPPC gave
it a favorable rating, but now its been sent to the faculty committee,
Professor of Classics Thomas Van Norwyck said. I dont
know what the affect of the new [CAS] request will be. We dont
consider ourselves in competition with other departments. The college
will approve one position- or another.
CAS comes out of years of student effort to bring Asian American
Studies, Queer Studies and Latino/a Studies to Oberlins campus.
We see this program as being launched before we come to the
questions of [a separate] Latino Studies, APA Studies, or LGBT Studies.
We are not sure if a school of our size could properly address these
issues as separate majors however in the one department
we
are the cutting edge of this discourse. If you look at how ethnic
studies is complicating itself with an analytical approach you see
we are at the forefront. Kornblyth said.
Ethnic Studies itself is widely held as one of the most critical
outgrowths of the 1960s Asian American Yellow movement.
In its first and most radical incarnation at San Francisco State
University, Asian American studies transformed the structure of
academia by demanding the right to study topics relevant to their
own non-western culture and heritage.
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