Minor on ethnic studies proposed

The Cura Personalis Initiative, a student-run effort established in September 2012 to address issues of diversity on campus, presented a proposal to the College Academic Council for an interdisciplinary minor in race, cultural, and ethnic studies on Tuesday night.

The minor is intended to draw from different departments at Georgetown to enable students to study American ethnic diversity.

“We have programs in the SFS specifically to address culture and politics around the globe, but our programs that engage those topics in the United States are remarkably weak,” said Kevin Magana (COL ‘15), who is a part of the leadership in the Cura Personalis putting forward this proposal.

The proposal builds upon previous attempts to incorporate diversity into Georgetown academics. In 2009, the Georgetown Student Commission for Unity, a student advocacy and research group, produced research that showed that Georgetown continues to lag behind in Asian American, African American, and Latino American studies compared to other elite academic universities throughout the United States.

“Academic working groups [in 2010] were asking … [for] five tenured line faculty in Asian American, African American, and Latino American studies. So far in Asian and Latino American studies, there has been nothing,” Magana said.

The Cura Personalis Initiative expects the minor to provide a base for future work in the area.  “This is one step of trying to work at getting a minor started and then hopefully working with that to make it a major, program, and full-fledged department,” said Antony Lopez (COL ‘14), who is also leading the initiative’s proposal.

The proposal asks the CAC to form a working group to propose ideas and discuss the critical aspects that should be included in the proposal to the Deans. Magana and Lopez believe the new major is an important step since the CAC advocated for the two newest minors in the College, bioethics and journalism.

If College deans raise no objections to the minor, Magana and Lopez believe that the University could implement the minor as soon as fall 2014, contingent on more community support. “A lot of people want to do this, but they don’t communicate enough to really put it forward. … If we can start getting alumni interested and start donating, it would get the ball rolling to making this happen,” Lopez said.