Committee Calls for Creation of a Center for Ethnic and Race Studies

By Amy Callahan

n a report released this week by President George Rupp, the President's Advisory Committee on Ethnic Studies has called for the creation of a Center for Studies in Ethnicity and Race, which will oversee the existing or nascent undergraduate majors in African-American, Asian-American and Latino Studies and will promote "intellectual synergism" as Columbia's curriculum expands to include the study of ethnicity.

The committee, chaired by Ruggles Professor of Political Science Ira Katznelson, outlines seven recommendations in its 17-page report. Hand-in-hand with the formation of the new Center, the committee also recommends the Center create shared introductory courses for majors in African-American, Asian-American and Latino Studies and should offer advanced courses common to all three.

"Our main conclusion can be stated simply," the report reads. "Teaching and research at Columbia should better account for the diverse ethnic and racial composition of American culture and society."

Rupp said he was grateful for the important work of the committee: "The committee has wrestled seriously with the issues and opportunities involved in ethnic diversity and has provided Columbia with expert guidance on how we can best balance traditions with a sense of the multi-ethnic context that shapes all communities in this pluralistic society. On behalf of the entire University, I thank the committee--and especially its chair, Ira Katznelson--for an excellent report. I now look forward to our further deliberations as we move ahead guided by the recommendations of the committee."

Provost Jonathan R. Cole also expressed enthusiasm for the work of the committee. "The report provides us with critically important faculty opinion and recommendations. The results will be studied carefully and reviewed thoroughly this spring by appropriate faculty and senate committees, with an eye toward implementing change. In parallel, faculty searches in areas of ethnic studies and American studies will continue until we have recruited outstanding teacher-scholars who can create a preeminent program in the social, economic, political and historical studies of ethnicity and race in America."

The 12-member faculty advisory committee was formed by Rupp in the spring of 1996 to explore the question of what is ethnic studies and to decide how such studies should be integrated into the University's curricula and programs.

The report traces the history of the study of ethnicity over time. It initiates a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the efforts of other universities to study ethnicity. And, the report points out the importance of linking future faculty and curricula changes in pursuit of its recommendations to the normal university processes for such adjustments.

In its report, the committee outlined three goals of such scholarship: 1. to advance Columbia's capacity to make historically-nuanced studies of racialized ethnicities and the historical formation of group identities in the United States; 2. to generate knowledge about social developments which transcend specific group experiences, and 3. to contribute to the critical scrutiny of the production of knowledge and the relations of power of racialized ethnicities.

The committee based its findings on meetings with students and faculty members, as well as its own review of the subject.

According to the committee's recommendations, the proposed Center for Studies in Ethnicity and Race will be headed by a leading scholar who will coordinate and administer undergraduate majors in African-American, Asian-American and Latino Studies.

The report contains five other recommendations:

The University should appoint faculty and allocate sufficient resources, in incremental stages, to ensure the success of this new venture: "Columbia must transcend a too stringent reaction to scarcity which might act as a barrier to the realization of effective programs...";
Given that the committee sees the study of race and ethnicity centered on an American context, the committee calls for the creation of an American Studies program. The African-American Institute would also work closely with the new Center;
The Center should be in a central, visible location;
The Committee on the Core should "conduct a thorough review of that curriculum and rearticulate its aims and values consistent with giving students access to the great minds and classic works of human civilization across the entire spectrum of human experience," and
The University should appoint a faculty committee to oversee the transition to the new programs and structures and help secure their integration into University life.

The committee stressed that the study of racialized minorities not be done in "intellectual isolation," and that classes be open to all members of the campus community.

"No one should be surprised that these controversies have found expression at Columbia," the report says.

"Among the country's major private universities, ours is arguably the most intellectually and demographically diverse, the most attuned to ethnic and racial heterogeneity and difference at home, the most embedded in a multicultural urban setting."

The report is being carefully studied by the President and the appropriate deans to determine the next appropriate steps.