A report on the advancement of ethnic studies was emailed en mass to Cal State Long Beach students, faculty and administration July 14 by President Jane Close Conoley.
The new report was authored by the CSU Task Force on the Advancement of Ethnic Studies, a team appointed by Chancellor Timothy White in 2014. The report included a statement by White as well as recommendations made by the task force to further advance each CSU’s respective ethnic studies departments.
This task force is the first of its kind since the conception of ethnic studies as a discipline at San Francisco State University in 1969. The team is comprised of ethnic studies faculty and administration from various CSUs throughout the state.
White’s statement maintained that the moratorium on all CSU ethnic studies departments stay in place until July 2017. According to White, said moratorium has been in effect for two and a half years and immobilizes attempts to diminish ethnic studies departments.
The task force includes CSULB professors from three out of four of the ethnic studies departments: Craig Stone, Professor of American Indian Studies and art; Maulana Karenga, Professor and Chair of Africana Studies and Linda España-Maram, Professor of Asian-American Studies.
The 2016 report included a list of ten recommendations that, according to the text, focus on five overarching objectives: “capacity building, campus climate, community engagement, collaboration and further study.” The recommendations are not intended to be interpreted as law, but as different solutions to further each CSU’s ethnic studies department.
Each recommendation focuses on challenges that face current ethnic studies departments, proposing ideas to strengthen these departments throughout the CSU system. These ideas included implementing new hiring methods as well as calling for an extended moratorium on all departments.
Executive director of news at CSULB, Mike Uhlenkamp, said that some of these recommendations are applicable to our campus, while other recommendations may not be as pertinent. However, active dialogue regarding the report is paused until fall semester.
“The idea would be, come this fall we want to get more information and feedback from various stakeholders,” Uhlenkamp said.
Uhlenkamp said that the university will begin independent research on CSULB’s ethnic studies departments with the 2016 report as a contributing factor, and by fall 2017, the school will decide which, if any, recommendations to implement.
The report included a 2015 survey meant to illustrate each Cal State’s histories and challenges within their respective ethnic studies departments. Craig Stone said that though many surveys only receive around a 20 percent response-rate, the survey that the task force sent out had a 95-96 percent response rate.
Stone said that because every campus’ ethnic studies department is different in how it’s managed, the biggest obstacle for CSULB will be figuring out which of the report’s recommendations they are able to adopt.
“The challenge is to look at those recommendations and try to see how you can implement them in each CSU,” Stone said. “We don’t really know what this looks like, so we’ll have to engage in a dialogue.”
He believes the lack of visibility offered to the ethnic studies department is one of the university’s largest issues surrounding the department’s success. Stone cites the fact that many professors have offices that are difficult to find, often put in buildings that do not pertain to their field of study.
CSULB will report their research on their ethnic studies department next fall.