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Department of

Ethnic Studies

Program

Ethnic Studies is a vibrant, interdisciplinary program that allows students to study the historical, cultural, and social dynamics of race and ethnicity in the United States. The Major addresses our shared national legacy of conquest, contact, and resistance through three areas of concentration: History and Identity, Creativity and Spirituality, and Institutions and Activism.

Our core courses thoroughly ground students in theoretical perspectives related to these three themes.  Within these broad categories, students are encouraged to develop their own areas of expertise, as they explore local and national communities of color.  Through community service learning and internships, students are challenged to engage with issues of privilege, difference, inequality, social justice, and empowerment in an applied manner. Ethnic Studies is uniquely situated to provide students with cross-cultural competence, with an historical grounding in domestic social justice issues, and with conflict resolution skills–all essential to civic life in an increasingly diverse nation and world.  Our majors are well prepared for careers in law, education, business, social work, counseling, public health, politics, and graduate study in Ethnic Studies.

Ethnic Studies Learning Goals/Outcomes:

  1. Summarize the legacies of contact, conquest, and resistance within the U.S. historical and contemporary context.
  2. Analyze the ways in which personal experiences are rooted in history and identity, creativity and spiritually, and institutions and U.S. activism from the experiences of at least two to four U.S. racial/ethnic groups.
  3. Discuss the ways in which groups live with and challenge the inheritance of conquest, colonialism, oppressions, slavery, extermination, segregation, sexism, and homophobia at the local, national, and transnational levels.
  4. Using a social justice perspective, compare and contrast the concepts of colorblindness, multiculturalism, diversity, tolerance, anti-racism, and conflict resolution.
  5. Apply critical race theoretical knowledge as a method that resists contemporary forms of oppression and marginalization and instead strengthens cultural competency.
  6. Link theoretical paradigm with community-based research and experimential learning such as social activism and participatory research.