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Minority Scholars Committee
Report from the Minority Scholars’ Committee 1997
This year, the Minority Scholars’ Committee was able to meet together not only at the Annual Meeting in Kansas City last October, but also, with the support of the Association and John Stephens in particular, in Washington last January. Under the leadership of Alvina Quintana, Committee members engaged a number of issues.
1. The Committee reviewed and clarified its charge, which includes: keeping the Council informed about issues affecting ethnic-American scholars in the profession; organizing and sponsoring special sessions at the national meeting; and undertaking special tasks relevant to the support of minority scholars and research in the field of American Studies.
2. In concert with the Women’s Committee, with whom the Committee has met collaboratively over the last two years, the consensus of the members was that their immediate focus would be upon coalition- building, as well as related considerations clarifying the relationship of American Studies to Ethnic and Cultural Studies, Women’s Studies, Gay and Lesbian Studies, Disability Studies, etc.
3. To advance those considerations, the group agreed upon the following title for its sponsored session at the 1997 meeting in Washington: “Coalition or Collision: Territory, Difference, and the Institution.” The session will be co-chaired by Alvina and Doris, representing the cooperative work of both committees. The two committees also agreed to co-sponsor the session on “Women and Disability.”
4. The Committee also began discussion, to be continued at the next Council meeting in Washington, DC, of a possible longer-term examination of issues related to coalition-building—reflected by a preliminary three-year proposal for future sessions: DC 1997, “Coalition or Collision” (foundational discussion); Seattle 1998, “Pedagogy and Difference”; and Montreal 1999, “Theoretical Intersections.”
Finally, the Committee wished to emphasize once more how much it values its cooperative work with the Women’s Committee and how much they have appreciated the support of the ASA leadership group and John Stephens in particular. The outcome has been a productive model of “coalition-building,” which the Committee hopes to build from in the future to strengthen the participation of “minority” scholars and scholarship about “minority” issues throughout American Studies more broadly.
The Council urged the Minority Scholars’ Committee to enlist the whole Association in looking for creative ways to address the central issue of competition between Ethnic Studies and American Studies on the local level, and extending opportunities for the preponderance of junior faculty involved in American Ethnic Studies. The Committee should look as well at questions of recruitment and retention of minority faculty and graduate students, and the provenience of Ethnic Studies sessions on the Annual Meeting program. The Council instructed the Executive Committee to re-think and clarify the charge to the Minority Scholars’ Committee and to provide greater support to its projects, activities, and priorities.
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