AA 2021-01

1.0 Policy Purpose

1.1 The University Ethnic Studies Committee (UESC) will be a permanent standing committee of the Academic Senate of California State University, Dominguez Hills (ASCSUDH).

2.0 Values & Guiding Principles for Decision-Making

2.1 Equity;

2.2 Student needs, voices, and perspectives shall be incorporated;

2.3 Disciplinary expertise shall be respected*, but coherence and intentionality shall also be maintained;

2.4 Academic freedom shall be respected;

2.5 The Ethnic Studies Committee and ethnic studies designated courses shall reflect students’ identities, strengths, and values;

2.6 All curricula that is approved shall integrate the Ethnic Studies Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs) at all levels and across the curriculum.

3.0 University Ethnic Studies Committee Charge

3.1 The University Ethnic Studies Committee is charged with:

3.1.1 Reviewing and approving lower and upper-division courses to meet the GE Area F Ethnic Studies requirement, utilizing the approved list of core competencies/student learning outcomes developed by the CSU Ethnic Studies Council listed in the CSU General Education Breadth Requirements Area F and any criteria established by the UESC;

3.1.1.1 Determining the appropriate ethnic studies prefix for courses approved for cross-listing.

3.1.2 Evaluating and updating criteria as needed by Ethnic Studies disciplinary standards for the GE Area F Ethnic Studies requirement;

3.1.3 Working with University Curriculum Committee and the General Education Committee, the University Ethnic Studies Committee shall review how the implementation of the Ethnic Studies Requirement shall impact GE and degree completion (i.e. double/triple counting of Ethnic Studies courses);

3.1.4 Consulting with the Faculty Development Center, Dean of Undergraduate Studies, General Education Committee in developing a specific ethnic studies assessment protocol when necessary for GE assessment.

4.0 Functions & Responsibilities within the University Curriculum Process

4.1 The University Ethnic Studies Committee (UESC) shall be integrated and function as an integral part of the university curriculum review process. The specific ordering of submitting proposed Ethnic Studies courses shall be delineated by the University Curriculum Committee in consultation with college curriculum committees, the General Education Committee (if appropriate), and the Dean of Undergraduate Studies.

4.1.1 All Department Curriculum Committees may submit course proposals to the permanent University Ethnic Studies Committee for approval for the Area F Ethnic Studies designation. The UESC will have final approval of Ethnic Studies designations based on established criteria.

5.0 Chair Designation & Committee Membership

5.1 The UESC shall be chaired by a faculty member with a terminal degree whose appointment is in one of the following Ethnic Studies departments: Africana Studies, Asian Pacific Studies, or Chicana/o Studies. The chair shall be a voting member of the committee and may also represent their department as one of the members designated below.

5.1.1 The chair will be elected by the UESC.

5.1.2 The chair shall receive appropriate course re-assigned time or direct compensation.

5.2 The UESIC Membership shall be as follows:

5.2.1 Voting Members

5.2.1.1 Departments will elect one tenure-track or tenured faculty member from each of the following departments: Africana Studies, Asian Pacific Studies, Chicana/o Studies, and the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas interdepartmental minor.

5.2.1.2 Departments will elect one non-tenure-track faculty member from each of the following departments: Africana Studies, Asian Pacific Studies, Chicana/o Studies, and the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas interdepartmental minor.

5.2.1.3 One student designated by Associated Students Incorporated.

5.2.2 Faculty voting members shall serve for two years.

5.2.3 Ex-Officio Non-Voting Members shall be as follows and serve annually:

5.2.3.1 Director of the Faculty Development Center [or designee],

5.2.3.2 Dean of Undergraduate Studies.

*Disciplinary Expertise in Ethnic Studies (adapted from the CSU Task Force Report on the Advancement of Ethnic Studies, 2016: http://www2.calstate.edu/impact-of-the-csu/diversity/advancement-of-ethnic- studies/Documents/ethnicstudiesreport.pdf.

First, ethnic studies, as a single discipline or the four core group disciplines conceptually engage as a combined and interrelated field of study, is defined by its primary focus on race and ethnicity, as distinct from other disciplines that engage this as one among many subjects. Secondly, its scholarship and teaching are grounded and centered in the cultures, concrete-lived conditions, and living histories of peoples of color. Thus, thirdly, it has an explicit commitment to linking scholarship, teaching and learning to social engagement (service and struggle), social change, and social justice. In this process, it advocates and generates cooperative and collaborative initiatives between campus and community, i.e., between the university and the core group communities, and the larger society. Ethnic studies’ methodologies place strong emphases on the critical study and support of the agency of peoples of color, and thus is concerned with how they conceive, construct and develop themselves, create and sustain culture Ethnic Studies Implementation Committee Policy Passed 01/27/2021 by the ASCSUDH Page 5 of 8 and meaning and engage in self-affirmation and opposition in resistance to societal oppressions of varied forms. It, thus, is also concerned with a critical understanding of the impact of the continuing histories and current conditions of oppression and resistance to conquest, colonialism, physical and cultural genocide, enslavement, segregation, lynching, racism, and various racial and racialized forms of social and structural violence, domination, degradation and destructive practices.

Drawing from historically rooted and constantly developing intellectual traditions of each core group and engaging bodies of relevant knowledge across disciplines, ethnic studies is committed to methodological practice that is interdisciplinary, comparative, intersectional, international and transnational. It therefore explores the interrelatedness and intersection of race and ethnicity with class, gender and sexuality and other forms of difference, hierarchy and oppression. And it also engages transnational and global issues, appreciating the four core groups’ identities, cultures, histories and socio-political contexts as diasporic communities that represent the demographic majority on the planet, and as members of American society which has shaped and continues to shape world history, producing scholarship of national and global importance that impacts the various interrelated realities that impinge the development of civil society both domestically and throughout the world. Finally, ethnic studies is defined by its initial and continuing commitment

to create intellectual and institutional space for the unstudied, understudied, marginalized and misrepresented peoples of color, spaces in which their lives and struggles are the subject of rigorous, original and generative scholarship, their voice and systems of knowledge are given due recognition and respect, and they are supported intellectually and practically in their struggles to push their lives forward and cooperate in building a truly just, equitable, democratic and multicultural society.