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Changing face of ethnic studies
New center would be comprised of the four LAS ethnic studies programs.
- By next fall, the ethnic studies programs in the College of Liberal Arts
and Sciences (LAS) will have a new face.
A couple of changes will be obvious.
J. Herman Blake, professor of sociology and educational leadership and policy
studies and the long-time director of African American Studies, has announced
his retirement. A search is currently underway to fill the position with
hopes the new director will be aboard in January 2006.
Programs in American Indian Studies, African American Studies, Asian American
Studies and U.S. Latino/a Studies should move from their offices in Catt
Hall to Carver Hall sometime in May.
There are other changes just as significant.
The four ethnic studies programs in LAS will comprise the foundation of
the new Center for American Intercultural Studies on campus. Although each
program will continue to have its own director, offer its own undergraduate
minor curriculum, and maintain a distinct identity, the new organization
will allow more effective collaboration between the programs and exploration
of new areas.
"The Center will combine the best of the intercultural studies approach
with the best of the more traditional models found at Midwestern universities,"
said Michael Whiteford, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Whiteford also noted that the Center will assist students and faculty in
exploring and fulfilling their potential as educated members of a global
and multicultural community.
Eugenio Matibag, associate professor of foreign languages and literatures,
will serve as the interim Center director.
Matibag, who has previously served as chair of the Asian American Studies
Steering Committee, says he's looking forward to a new challenge. The new
Center will allow faculty in each of the ethnic studies programs to collaborate,
according to Matibag. One area of collaboration will be the study of how
ethnic groups in America interact with the majority EuroAmerican community
as well as with each other.
"Bringing the ethnic studies faculty under one umbrella will create
a critical mass of ethnic studies," he said. "It will allow collaborating
faculty to work together to create a core curriculum for a new interdisciplinary
major in American Intercultural Studies."
For the past two years, the ethnic studies program directors and LAS administration
have met to develop the model for the new Center.
Besides Matibag and Blake, the other program directors are Hector Avalos,
associate professor of philosophy and religious studies, U.S. Latino/a Studies,
and Sidner Larson, associate professor of English, American Indian Studies.
The original discussions looked at the possibility of the programs merging
and forming a new academic department. Currently, ethnic studies faculty
hold tenured or tenure-track appointments in a home academic department
with joint responsibilities in one of the ethnic studies programs.
Typically the home academic departments have been in one of the humanities
or social sciences departments.
"There just weren't enough faculty members to form a department,"
Avalos said. "So the idea was started that if we couldn't be a department
and we wanted to be more than individual programs, maybe there was something
in the middle."
Currently the U.S. Latino/a Studies Program has the most faculty members
with five. The others have far fewer.
That doesn't mean that Matibag and the other program directors have given
up hope of one day becoming their own department.
"There currently isn't an ethnic studies department at any of the (Iowa)
Regents universities," Matibag said. "With the formation of the
Center we would be in unique position to create a department somewhere in
the future here at Iowa State."
Other changes could be in the offing as well.
"We hope to extend beyond the humanities and social sciences to include
the applied sciences and continue to explore the connection between culture
and science," Matibag said.
There are possibilities of periodically offering courses in other ethnic
studies areas as well.
"The Center would allow us to look at the study of other emerging and
existent cultural groups in the U.S. (e.g. Bosnian Americans, Serbian Americans
and Arab Americans), that are part of the American tapestry of cultures,"
Avalos said.
Eugenio Matibag
Around LAS
April 25 to May 8, 2005
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