Ethnic Studies' Mission and Purpose Statement
The mission of our College is to provide a safe space and resources for students and faculty to study our histories of resistance and cultural productions by giving voice to philosophies and perspectives that, while not typically valued in traditional academia, truly represent the diversity of worldviews of communities of color and among indigenous peoples. We recognize the validity of multiple paradigms in the construction of knowledge and encourage the integrated study of all aspects of the human experience. Our commitment to self-determination is reflected in the College's founding curricular emphases on liberatory student-centered pedagogies and community participatory learning that promote creative thinking on solving social problems and disparities in communities of color and indigenous peoples.
In our teaching, scholarship and creative work, we specifically analyze structural forms of oppression and address the intersections of race, ethnicity, and other forms of identity and social status. Our work affirms comparative and transdisciplinary approaches to national and diasporic questions. The primary aim of the College of Ethnic Studies is to actively implement a vision of social justice focusing on social inequalities that exist on the basis of race and ethnicity. Therefore our teaching, encouragement, and mentoring of students and student organizations have the goal of developing long-term leadership skills, knowledge of self, and collaborative activist abilities within and between communities of color and indigenous peoples.
Some faculty, student and staff members of the College of Ethnic Studies
