By Jim Brown and Jody Brown
It's a first for higher education in America. A university in California will become the first to offer a Ph.D. in Chicano Studies.
The University of California at Santa Barbara announced last week it will offer a doctoral program in the study of Mexican-American history and culture. The program, which will include a master's track, expects to admit and enroll its first graduate students in the fall of 2004. It will be offered through the school's Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies.
Professor Carlos Morton, director of the Center for Chicano Studies at the school, says such programs are no longer “stuck in the 1960s” and mired in Marxist politics.
“It seems to me that [the research agenda of the faculty] is maturing into an entirely new and different area,” Morton says. “For example, we're very closely allied with Mexican studies, which is the study of not only the neighboring country but also probably the biggest trading partner in California.”
Morton calls the program “the wave of the future,” and predicts more like it will soon be flourishing across the country.
“I think it's something that you're going to see in other areas as well because of the importance of the Latino population and the impact that Latinos are having on American society, not only in California but also in Texas, Arizona, and New York,” he says.
The university committee that proposed the program noted that approximately 60% of the 35 million Americans of Latino descent identify themselves as being of Mexican heritage. The committee contends that such a large group merits a doctoral program to study its culture and history.
For years, many conservatives have argued that university ethnic studies programs are “politically correct” and promote revisionist history — and that programs such as Chicano Studies promote ethnic separatism on campus.
(This article courtesy of Agape Press).
