Students, faculty and administrators gathered to discuss the creation of a comparative American studies department at UW-Madison at the Humanities Building Sunday. Popular at many other universities, the department would create a new curriculum to strengthen ethnic studies on campus by incorporating such studies into one centralized department.
Henry Ton, chair of the Asian Pacific American Council, emphasized the need for a comparative American studies department as a collaborative initiative involving several already existing departments.
\The idea of a comparative American studies department would give already existing programs department status and would also extend to help foster the creation of new and daring programs such as Latino, lesbian gay bisexual transgender, Arab-American and Puerto Rican studies,"" Ton said.
He noted that American Indian, Asian American, Chicano, Jewish and women studies programs on campus have all been victims of budget cutbacks and now have fewer resources than when they began.
Both Ton and Jason Davis, UW-Madison senior and volunteer with Campaign Plan 2008, criticized UW-Madison's feeble attempts toward diversification and an improved campus climate.
""Plan 2008 will take 38 years at its current rate when it should only take eight years,"" Davis said.
He said many efforts to increase diversity have been merely ""words on paper,"" citing the one percent increase in minority students between 1991 and 2001.
The comparative American studies initiative began ""to promote a diverse range of ideas"" and also ""help build a more open and compassionate campus,"" Ton said. He also told attendees that it would make better use of UW-Madison's copious resources.
The new program would be an umbrella to many existing programs, and students would be able to specialize in a specific area within the comparative American studies department, Ton said.
Complementing the comparative American studies program, James Murphy Aguilu, a Union Puertorriquena board member, encouraged the crowd to support the creation of a Puerto Rican studies program to draw more Latino students from Milwaukee, Chicago and Madison.
Aguilu said Puerto Rican students feel unsupported at large universities like UW-Madison despite the fact that the group has an enormous impact on the nation.
Francis Aparicio, director of the Latino Studies Program at University of Illinois-Chicago, who spoke Sunday, gave advice for students who are promoting stronger ethnic programs.
A veteran of academia, she argued, ""social change in the academy always begins with the students"" and warned that ""you need to have a blueprint before you go to the administrators.""
She also stressed the need for faculty from all fields to cooperate in the comparative American studies program, citing that ""[ethnic] studies needs to be located in various disciplines.""
Aparicio and many attendees addressed difficulty in deciding what groups should receive greater attention as UW-Madison incorporates more ethnic studies in the curriculum. Many agreed that changing American identities and politics affect which populations receive the most attention.
""History will slap us in the face,"" Aparicio warned, if these issues are not addressed.
