To the Department of Ethnicity and Race:
The United Students of Color Council would like to emphasize
its strong commitment to the development of the Comparative Ethnic
Studies program. We would also like to promote the development of
courses relating to the study of Native Americans, as well as the
growth of resources on or relating to Native American history,
literature, and culture.
We would like the disciplines within the Center to remain
united. We are advocates for a comparative approach toward the
study of ethnicity and race that is inclusive of all groups.
It is
our belief that a fully developed Ethnic Studies program that has
faculty, courses, and resources relating to the Native American
community is a necessary component to the substantive quality of
Columbia University’s academic curriculum.
If the Comparative Ethnic Studies program at Columbia wishes
to one day hold the same prestige and notoriety similar programs at
other institutions have, it must first hire faculty to represent and
administer courses on the all too neglected Native American
community.
At other universities, such as Washington State,
students are given the option of concentrating in Native American
Studies while majoring in the Comparative Ethnic Studies program.
Stanford University’s Native American Studies program allows
students who major in this discipline to conduct advanced study in
literature, sociology, education, or law with reference to the
topic. The University of Colorado Boulder houses and American
Indian Studies program as part of its larger Comparative Ethnic
Studies major. This fall the program is offering fourteen courses
ranging from the ‘American Indian’s Women Experience’ to ‘Native
Americans and Environmental Ethics’ to ‘Indian Government
Conflicts’ to ‘American Indians in Film.’ This fall the University
of California at Riverside is also offering a breadth of courses on
Native Americans as part of their Comparative Ethnic Studies
program, ranging from ‘The Native American Diaspora’ to ‘Roots of
American Indian Traditions.’ They also offer an introductory course
on Native Americans that can fulfill requirements for the overall
major. University of California at Riverside also offers 20
additional graduate courses focusing on the Native American
experience. These examples are given to prove the depth of courses
that are offered to students at other universities. The question
then remains, why not Columbia?
The expression of ideas with regard to art, literature, and
visual media and their overall interpretation is highly distinct to
each individual social environment. Their interaction culminates in
a fusion of ideas within our society. Analysis of how our values
are structured by this interaction, and the effect of that
interaction upon our relations with others, is a significant
component to our understanding of the society in which we live.
From this standpoint, exclusion of the Native American
experience in the comparative ethnic studies curriculum, and a
fundamental lack of Native American literature and resources is a
detriment to
students wishing to structure their academic experience on
comparative ethnic studies. While as students we understand the
limitations of a single department, we also understand the value of
an overarching education. We strive to work with the department for
the promotion of its events, enrollment of its students in its
classes, and embitterment of its curriculum. While we understand
the difficulty of acquiring more faculty, and the importance in
allowing the independent disciplines of the center to grow, we
believe very strongly in supporting communities and ethnicities
that are not being fully acknowledged, and whose contributions to
American and global history are not being adequately recognized.
The service that you provide as professors is invaluable, and
it too often goes unappreciated and unrecognized. Yet, the service
the Center would provide, in both hiring new faculty specializing
in Native American studies, in increasing resources on or regarding
Native Americans, and in increasing programming geared toward this
underserved community, would be invaluable to Columbia community at
large. As an organization aiming to represent the entire community
of color at Columbia, we can not adequately stress our belief that
the center should remain unified in its approach to a
cross-cultural exploration of ethnicities, and that the strength of
the Center will increase as its representation of distinct
ethnicities and cultures in the Americas becomes more balanced.
Sincerely,
United Students of Color Council Executive Board