February 26, 2001
Latin American and Latino studies program earns departmental status
By Jennifer McNulty
In a move that underscores UCSC's role on the cutting edge of intellectual pursuit,
Campus Provost John Simpson has approved the establishment of the Latin American
and Latino Studies (LALS) Department.
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| Jonathan Fox will chair the new Latin American and Latino Studies Department. Photo: Jon Kersey |
"I would like to extend both my congratulations and confidence in the continued success of this new department and its faculty," Simpson wrote in a February 12 memo to Division of Social Sciences Dean Martin Chemers and LALS Department Chair Jonathan Fox.
The ascension from program to departmental status reflects institutional consolidation and creates opportunities for growth, said Fox. "This decision builds on our university's tradition of pioneering innnovative interdisciplinary fields," he said. "Both the administration and the Academic Senate have recognized that our intellectual project merits becoming a permanent part of the UCSC landscape."
The program began as Latin American studies in the 1970s and was renamed in 1994 to reflect the importance of building intellectual bridges with the study of Chicano and Latino populations within the United States. The new name coincided with a reorganization designed to bolster the study of cross-border issues.
The department is by far the largest and most established program in the U.S. that bridges the fields of Latin American and Latino studies, said Fox. "We're developing the analytical tools needed to prepare our students for the 21st century in California," he said.
The broader focus allows students to address contemporary issues such as globalization, transnationalization, and the ways in which groups reproduce their regional culture in binational settings. The innovative approach has attracted broad interest from other universities.
"A number of programs across the country are looking to Santa Cruz as a place where the faculty have thought through the implications and challenges of this approach," said Patricia Zavella, a professor of community studies and director of the UCSC Chicano/Latino Research Center (CRLC). "There's such interest in what we're doing that we're planning on writing an [academic] article about it, and this will frame the hemispheric dialogues conference that we host in two years."
With increased migration from Latin America and the growth of the Latino population in the United States, there is greater need for classes that theorize the experience of Latinos, said Zavella, but there is also a need to examine "what is pushing people to migrate and who stays behind."
"It's a complicated but useful approach," she noted.
To a large extent, the department's focus was made possible by the 1992 launching of the CRLC, which defined its mission in terms of "cross-border perspectives linking the Americas."
The approach has broad appeal on campus, as well, with six ladder-rank faculty and two senior lecturers in LALS, as well as 15 participating faculty who have full votes in all important departmental decisions, noted Fox.
The LALS curriculum at UCSC seeks balance between humanities and social science approaches. Students who major in Latin American and Latino studies are required to speak, read, and write in Spanish or Portuguese. Students also have the option of declaring a minor in Latin American and Latino studies.
