Faculty and administrators will meet Friday with students interested in adding a Latino and Latin American studies minor to the Northwestern curriculum.
Alianza Sen. Rachel Lopez, who wrote an Associated Student Government bill encouraging administrators to hire faculty specializing in Latino studies, said that although she met with administrators periodically throughout Fall Quarter, nothing definitive has been accomplished.
“The faculty and administration have been pretty responsive, but they need to make more of an effort to try to hire faculty,” said Lopez, a Weinberg sophomore. “The problem is we don’t have enough qualified faculty, or else we’d be able to have the minor now.”
Last year Alianza members got nearly 1,000 students to sign a petition calling for a Latino studies minor, Lopez said, and administrators said they were looking to hire a professor specializing in Latino studies. Though some candidates were interviewed, no one was hired.
Last quarter, administrators asked a group of students interested in the minor to meet Ilan Stavans, a candidate for a Latino studies professorship.
Weinberg senior Briana Wilson, who was one of the students who met Stavans, said the meeting was a good first step, but that administrators have not asked the students for any review of Stavans.
“We totally loved him,” Wilson said. “But (administrators) haven’t contacted us since before we met with Stavans (in November). They haven’t followed up with us at all.”
Mary Weismantel, chairwoman of Latin American and Caribbean studies, was unavailable for comment Monday.
It took students nine years of lobbying to get an Asian-American studies minor, which was offered for the first time this quarter. Although students officially began lobbying for the Latino minor last year, Medill senior and former Alianza Sen. Xelena Gonzalez said the need for a Latino studies program was apparent from her first day at NU.
“African-American studies already had their own department, and Asian-American studies was getting into their own thing,” Gonzalez said. “So many students in Hispanic studies were complaining that they weren’t being acknowledged.”
NU offers a few classes in Latino studies, but they are taught by professors from other departments.
Lopez, however, wants more. Hiring Latino studies professors and creating a minor would benefit the entire NU community, she said.
“The whole campus will be interested in it,” she said. “A lot of people take interest in Latino issues that aren’t Latino in any way. If we want to establish ourselves as a prestigious school, we want to follow the model of Harvard and Yale, who have had Latino studies for years.”
