February 27, 2002
From the desk of Jane Galt:Report from the Front Lines
Report from the Front Lines
An anonymous reader from the bowels of academia, who is still trying to think up a good pseudonym, forwards the following missive to illustrate the "Separate and Unequal" place ethnic studies occupies in the academy:I'm forwarding a message sent to all students (and faculty, staff, and administration) here today. I should admit up front that all departments are guilty of what my friend Esmerelda Von Clausewitz (not her real name), an archaeologist who considers herself especially good at it, calls "major whoring": recruiting enough majors to one's department to keep the administration from cutting one of your tenuretrack "lines" (i.e. jobs).But I've never seen another department use the argument that its faculty are better scholars than their colleagues ("some of the finest faculty at the college"). This claim is false (says me), but how would one go about offering a counterargument except by public criticism of the scholarship of one's colleagues? (Which would be uncool under any circumstances, but in this case would also have you tarred and feathered as a racist.)
Dear Students,Many of you are in the process of deciding upon your major. As Chair of the Africana Studies Program here at F&M, I want to encourage you to examine the Africana Studies Program as a possibility. There are three reasons why I believe Africana Studies merits your consideration. First, Africana Studies is a rapidly developing interdisciplinary field of study with many pioneering, worldclass scholars at the forefront of the field. Indeed, some of the greatest scholars in the United States today are specialists in Africana or African-American Studies. As evidence of this, I invite you to examine the faculty at Harvard, Princeton, Berkeley, NYU, and Columbia Universities. Second, many thoughtful observers believe that both the promise and difficulties that are faced by the people of Africa on the continent and around the world will, in this century, move from the periphery of international concern to the center. As a consequence, vast intellectual, humanitarian, economic and political resources will likely be brought to bear in service to the peoples of Africa, and we will need well-trained scholars in Africana studies to play a role. Last, the Africana Studies Program at Haverdell College has, at its disposal, some of the finest faculty at the college. Some of these include Professors [names expunged to protect the guilty] (among others).
If you think that you might be interested in exploring Africana Studies as an area of concentration - either as a major or minor -- I invite you to contact me.
With warm regards,
[Name Witheld]
Now coming up with tenuous rationales for persuading unwitting students to choose your major is hardly unique to any field of study. But I've never seen a department claim it had the best scholars on campus -- not if it wanted to hold its own in the annual mudfest that surrounded funding battles at my Alma Mater. Posted by Jane Galt at February 27, 2002 7:20 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links