Word: ethnics
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Rhythms, the Harvard Foundation's annual extravaganza of riveting performances and mouth-watering food. The event itself was full of positive vibes, but as singer Valerie Jackson pointed out, it highlighted the hypocrisy of an administration that boasts of its cultural diversity but quashes student initiatives concerning race and ethnic studies...
Although it was heartening to see hundreds of performers and audience members wearing green armbands in support of race and ethnic studies, the fact that the same thing happened last year only serves to indicate that the RES movement has made scant progress at Harvard...
...Race and ethnic studies as we know it today owes its birth to activist students. Violent campus protests at San Francisco State led to the first ethnic studies program in 1968, and similar departments sprang up at universities up and down the West Coast soon afterward. Although the RES movement has lagged behind on the East Coast, it has made some substantial gains. Along with African American studies, Cornell offers majors in Asian American and Latino studies; Yale offers a major in ethnicity, race and migration; and UMass Boston features a Hispanic studies department and an Asian American institute...
...does Harvard compare? The Course of Instruction lists 79 "Courses Related to Ethnic Studies." But more than 40 percent of those courses are not being offered this year, and some of the remaining selections can hardly be counted as related to ethnic studies. I doubt you'll find much critical race theory or ethnic case studies in Historical Study A-34: "Medicine and Society in America." And although I appreciate the existence of courses such as Sociology 135: "The Caribbean Experience in America," I wonder why there are no similar courses for, for example, the Puerto Rican or South Asian...
...dearth of quality and continuity among faculty members is another deterrent to student interest in RES. A number of students have complained to me that courses related to ethnic studies are poorly taught and that the professors lack expertise in ethnic studies. Some are taught by visiting professors, meaning that the courses will never be offered again and they will not produce thesis advisers. Many others are taught by junior faculty, who may also leave before one's senior year, thanks to Harvard's friendly tenure system...