Sociology 76 (Winter 2023): Race, Power, and Politics

Other Ethnic Studies Departments

The establishment of an Asian American Studies Program would not be unprecedented in Dartmouth’s history. To date, Dartmouth houses four other academic programs or departments dedicated to ethnic studies: the Department of African and African American Studies (AAAS), the Jewish Studies Program (JWST), the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies (LALACS), and the Department of Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS).

The current Dartmouth administration recognises the value of ethnic studies programs to members of marginalised groups. Professor Matthew Delmont, the current Associate Dean of International and Interdisciplinary Studies, has been quoted as saying that such programs help students find a “sense of belonging,” and that these fields of study occupy a different niche on campus than any other department on account of that fact. Ethnic studies departments at Dartmouth experienced a Renaissance of sorts post-COVID-19, with AAAS, LALACS, and NAIS being promoted to department status. In this context, the absence of an Asian American Studies program at Dartmouth is all the more conspicuous. 

Below is a brief history of the establishment of Dartmouth’ current ethnic studies programs.

Department of African and African American Studies

Choate House, at the corner of North Main Street and Choate Road, which is home to the African and African American Studies office.

Dartmouth’s African and African American Studies Program was founded in 1969 in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement. This came just two years after the segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace’s second visit to campus, where he gave a speech that was met with a counter-protest, eventually culminating in a nationally televised episode of mayhem where a group of students mobbed Wallace’s car. The “Wallace Affair,” as it came to be referred to within the College’s internal memos, drew mountains of letters from the general public that ranged from, in Dartmouth employee Fritz Hier’s words, “thoughtful and meaningful” to racist vitriol that was “in the real crank department.” This protest was not necessarily a reflection of the entire student body’s support for the Black community. The Dartmouth published a scathing editorial the next day, denouncing the “ugliness” displayed by the protestors as “savage and wild,” at the same time saving some choice words of disapprobation for the members of the Afro-American Society whom they found hard to regard seriously.

Department of Native American and Indigenous Studies

The program which would eventually evolve into the Department of NAIS was founded in 1972 as the Native American Program as a response to Dartmouth's unacknowledged founding promise of educating the Native American youth. The appropriation of Native American imagery is everywhere in Dartmouth’s history, from the Indian mascot who was retired in the 70s, to the weathervane atop Baker Tower that was removed in 2020, to the stickers bearing the same motif as said weathervane that still feature on the covers of many a library book, though they are occasionally covered up with the Dartmouth “D.” In 2022—the fifty-year anniversary of the founding of the Native American Program—Dartmouth expanded and promoted the program to Department status, reflecting on its debt to the communities whose marginalisation it had been complicit in.

Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies

Raven House, home to the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies.

A program for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (LACS) was instituted as a permanent part of Dartmouth in the autumn of 1995. Nevertheless, the program struggled to stay afloat as the college failed to hire consistent faculty members to teach courses in the program. This meant that courses related to the discipline were scattered around various departments, putting the onus on students to locate classes in the field—a shortcoming that was acknowledged by then-Associate Dean of the Faculty George Wolford. Roughly contemporaneous to these events was a student-led push in 1997 for the permanent retainment of the college’s four Latino Studies courses, which focussed more squarely on the study of Latino Americans. Wolford commented that this was “a complex issue.” Nevertheless, the College formally instituted a LALACS program in 2006, housing Latino Studies under the same roof as LACS. The LALACS program was involved in talks with proponents of Asian American Studies regarding the potential formation of a Program of the Americas which would house both programs, though these discussions eventually fell through.

Jewish Studies Program

A Jewish Studies minor was instituted in the fall of 1994. Prior to this, the Jewish Studies program at Dartmouth was minuscule, comprising three religion courses and one in Asian Studies as of 1993. Dartmouth was also at that time the only Ivy LEague institution without an institutionalised Jewish Studies Program. Alumni donations earmarked for the development of a more robust Jewish Studies curriculum spurred the growth of the program, which presently lists twenty-four classes on its course catalog.