Spence Gives Funds For Ethnic Studies

In a move expected to increase the number of courses offered in ethnic studies, administrators this week announced a special fund to bring visiting professors with interests in ethnic studies to the University.

Administrators and students said yesterday that the new visiting professor program would boost the number of ethnic studies classes from one this year to about five annually and bring more minority scholars to campus. The new courses will cover the experiences of various ethnic groups in the United States, including Asians, Hispanics, Puerto Ricans and Native Americans.

Dean of the Faculty A. Michael Spence decided to created the fund to address concerns brought by several minority student groups for curriculum reform, students said yesterday.

But students involved with a student-faculty group that last spring proposed a visiting professor program in Mexican-American studies said yesterday that they have "serious reservations" about the new fund. They said the Program may cover too many ethnic groups to sufficiently address the concerns of each one.

A faculty committee, headed by Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education David Pilbeam, will decide how to use the funds and will select the visiting professors. Bliss Professor of Latin American History John Womack Jr., one of the committee members, was part of the student-faculty group which proposed the Mexican-American visiting scholars program.

Although the details of the plan are still sketchy, Pilbeam said yesterday he hopes to have the first visiting professors teaching courses by next fall. The fund would likely bring a new visiting professor to Harvard each semester, according to a statement released by Spence.

Courses on other countries' experiences with ethnic groups may also be considered, Pilbeam said.

But Edith Ramirez '89, who met last Friday with Spence to discuss the new program, said she thought the ethnic studies program was too broad in scope to address students' requests for changes in the curriculum.

In addition, she said the burden of recruitingvisiting professors would fall on studentsconcerned with the issue, because departments havehistorically ignored scholars in the field ofethnic studies. In the meeting with Spence lastweek, Ramirez said she brought a list of sevenpossible visiting scholars to the administrators.

Pilbeam conceded that the Mexican-Americanvisiting scholars proposal triggered the newethnic studies fund, but said the Faculty of Artsand Sciences (FAS) did not have enough resourcesavailable to create a program specifically for thestudy of one ethnic group.

"This is a start--we decided to take whateverresources we had and begin with a program notspecifically tied to one ethnic group," Pilbeamsaid.

This year, there is only one course funded bythe administration which falls under the headingof ethnic studies--General Education 148, "TheAsian Immigrant in American History Since 1850."

That course was introduced into the curriculumas the result of lobbying efforts on the part ofthe Harvard Foundation's Academic Affairscommittee, said Associate Professor of Sociologyand Afro-American Studies Roderick J. Harrison.

Departments currently offer a variety ofcourses in the area of ethnic studies, but the newfund is intended to supplement departmentalinstruction in the field, according to Spence'sstatement.

"These resources are meant to be an incrementto the courses on ethnic studies that arecurrently being offered by people holding regularHarvard appointments," the release says.

The committee plans to search out candidateswho would be affiliated with departments whilevisiting at Harvard and teach departmental--ratherthan General Education--courses.

"It is definitely a priority to try to makeappointments of visitors who are tied todepartments and who will do an array of teachingwhile here," Pilbeam said.

Pilbeam said department heads have not yet beentold of the new fund, adding that Spence willdiscuss the program with them during regularmeetings he holds with FAS department chairs