Comparative American Studies Proposed

After decades of a call from students for Latina/o Studies, Asian American Studies and Queer Studies, the administration and faculty is finally answering.

Last spring, a faculty and staff ad-hoc committee met to establish a Comparative American Studies program. Members of the committee are from a number of different departments including studio art, history, sociology, English, African-American Studies, theater and dance, women's Studies, and athletics. The members also range in length of service at Oberlin College, from visiting professors up to senior staff.

On Oct. 2, the Committee on CAS sent a letter to the Education Plans and Policies Committee and the College community in general, outlining a possible program.

The letter historically positions CAS as a comparative synthesis of curricular movements from the "social and demographic changes" in the '60s and '70s. These consist of African-American studies, ethnic studies, third world studies, women's studies, environmental studies, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Studies (which was refined as queer studies beginning in the '80s).

Committee members emphasized the fact that their program is tentative, and the purpose of the letter is to draw advice from the community in order to strengthen their ultimate formal proposal.

The curricuum discussed in the letter is a program consisting of five concentrations: African-American studies, women's studies, Latina/o studies, Asian American studies and queer studies. In order to major in the program, students would need to have two concentrations and satisfy a number of other requirements, including at least 30 hours and a senior research seminar.

In advocating the inclusion of African American studies and women's studies in the program, the committee members wrote, "CAS could not and should not replace the vital scholarly and curricular role of Oberlin's Department of African American Studies or the women's studies program."

Pamela Brooks, associate professor of African American studies, said, "The comparative approach will offer real value in linking peoples and politics to culture and experiences. CAS would further extend our mission to look beyond the United States. It would facilitate bringing the discussion of the world into discussion of the experiences of the different peoples who make up America."

The next step toward establishing a CAS program is to gain approval from the Education Plans and Policies Committee.

Steve Volk, an EPPC member and Associate Professor of history specializing in Latin American history, also welcomed the program. "A lot of colleges and universities are figuring out how to deal with difference. Some colleges have gone the route of separating each study by identity. That's problematic, especially for Oberlin College. The comparative analytic method is important for reconfiguring the American landscape," he said.

"The other thing Comparative Studies does is problematize whiteness. Where a sort of Ethnic Studies approach places ethnicity as a non-white trait, the comparative approach confronts the idea of whiteness, examining history without the establishment of white as normal," Volk said.

Senior Rossana Rossi said, "Reading the letter, I was impressed. It made me proud of the people writing it because I consider them friends and allies. So many people, from all over campus, coming together to write this letter made me glad. I never liked the title ŒEthnic Studies' because the word Œethnic' from the Greek root Œethos' means foreign. And Ethnic Studies is talking about Americans of color, not foreigners."

Some of the members of the committee for CAS hold recently created positions that were lobbied for by students over an extensive period of time.

Junior Grace Han said, "It's good and rewarding to see that professors, like Asian Americanists, who students have lobbied the administration to hire for 30 years, are so quickly working towards the creation of courses and programs that will fill the holes in the Oberlin College curriculum left over from the 60s."

Last semester, the Board of Trustees decided to initiate 10 more full-time employee positions to combat the increase in the student-to-faculty ratio.

Of these 10 positions, the letter outlines a CAS program that would need 1.5 of them, meaning one person who teaches classes fully dedicated to the CAS program and another person whose classes are partially dedicated to the program, or two partially dedicated positions.

Addressing this, the committee wrote, "Staffing requests are currently being discussed, but we can state this much at this time. Courses in the area of sexuality and the field of Latina/o Studies are very limited and we have no position at the College which includes sexuality as the sole or major component."

Acting President and EPPC Member Clayton Koppes said, "Comparative American Studies potentially offers a rigorous, sophisticated framework in which to study some of the most vexing issues in contemporary United States society. These subjects have been the focus of a great deal of sophisticated intellectual work over the past few decades."

Another EPPC member, Professor of Mathematics Jeff Witmer, expressed concern with the creation of another major. "Oberlin has a lot of majors. It has more majors than any other college of the size it compares itself to. Adding yet another major, instead of reshaping curriculum, might not be the right way to go. Can Asian American Studies and Latino Studies be offered in the departments already in place? Creating a major/program demands support. Oberlin can't do everything. There're a lot of valuable things OC chooses not to do. But we already choose to do more things than most liberal arts colleges. Can we afford to do more? I don't know," Witmer said.

Concerning the abundance of majors, Koppes said, "The College of Arts and Sciences is larger than most of our competitor colleges. Our greater size enables us to offer more majors than most of them, and this is clearly an advantage for us in recruiting students. Colleges organize their curricula in various ways, and I don't think there is any particular model that tells us a priori what's the "right" number of majors for a given institution. If we have the necessary faculty resources and a sound intellectual rationale, then that should be sufficient grounds to justify a major. There is clearly a relationship between the curriculum we offer and our ability to attract the students we want at Oberlin."

Senior Erika Hansen said, "I think the letter of intent clearly identifies the shortcomings of the Oberlin curriculum and lays a stable foundation for the formulation of a CAS program. I am interested in seeing the reaction that the EPPC has to the letter of intent. I sincerely hope that EPPC has the foresight and courage to commit to the ideals and goals outlined in the letter of intent, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I fear that this cause may be overlooked or underprioritized by the committee."

In predicting the reception by the general faculty, Brooks said, "I think it'll be a struggle because a program such as this seeks to transcend traditional departmental power. There're those within the faculty who strongly guard the power with which they've been invested. The faculty sees itself as the gate keepers, sees that they've worked hard to establish the framework for which the College enables new programs to exist. Comparative American Studies challenges a notion about what Oberlin is and who Oberlin represents; it seeks to open Oberlin even wider, to a diverse voice, to people of color who've not historically been empowered."

Han said, "I just hope that students don't stop taking a role in working towards the construction of more representative curriculum, instead of putting up with this traditional ivory tower bullshit."