The Fed

Letter to the Editor

First, I would like to express my appreciation to Jacqueline Hidalgo and The Fed for publishing an article about the state of Ethnic Studies, an issue that is so important to this campus.

I have one factual correction to make to the otherwise excellent article: all previous searches for a Director of the Latino Studies Program have failed to hire someone for the position; Columbia did not hire Directors who then left the university.

As a student representative on this year’s committee, I would also like to take this opportunity to update Fed readers about what has happened with the search since the article came out. When 1 was interviewed for the article in February, I felt sure the search would again fail to hire anyone. Because over the last three years almost every single well known and influential Latino Studies scholar has applied to work at Columbia, I was extremely frustrated that no one qualified for the position was ever deemed "tenurable" by Columbia departments. This year the faculty chose to interview Rudy de la Garza, a political scientist who had already been considered in the 1997 search and deemed by the students then to be completely out of touch with the contemporary field of Latino Studies. In 2000, we found him the same, as well as pessimistic, apathetic, and not particularly smart about anything but political science. For the would-be Director of an interdisciplinary program just starting to grow within a hostile university, these were not good qualities.

However, it turns out that when 1 thought these factors had doomed the third consecutive search to fail, I underestimated our Political Science department, who back de la Garza enthusiastically (perhaps because hiring him means they get a tenured faculty member to join their ranks without paying a cent.) In an unexpected turn of events, a contingent of faculty have persuaded Vice President Cohen to invite de la Garza back to campus for a second interview. They have also taken away the students right to vote on the committee’s recommendations, relegating us to an "advisory role."

To me, these obstacles we face now further highlight the need for a change in the hire and tenure systems at Columbia. Program needs and department needs within Columbia are hopelessly at odds. If Latino Studies, and other programs, cannot even hire their own directors, they can never control their own destinies. At a place like Columbia, a lack of hiring power for programs that challenge the methodologies of traditional disciplines means that they can never grow and flourish as they should. Ethnic Studies programs, Women’s and Gender Studies, Yiddish Studies, etc. should all be able to hire and tenure their own faculty. This change in university policy would not weaken the ability of Columbia to control the quality of its faculty; rather, it is the only way we can ensure that these programs are able to hire and tenure qualified, dynamic professors.

Thank you again, Fed editors, for covering this issue.

Jenny Montoya Tansey
Chair of SPEaK (Students Promoting Empowerment and Knowledge) Academic Affairs Committee