New Committee to Study Ethnic Courses Offerings

The College has formed a student-faculty committee to investigate ways of increasing academic offerings on American ethnic minorities, in response to students' complaints about the paucity of such courses, committee members said yesterday.

The Academic Affairs Committee, headed by Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57, will look for ways to add courses on American minority groups to the curriculum and seek out visiting scholars to teach the courses, College officials said.

The committee will also concentrate on incorporating these new courses into the Core curriculum, either in existing Core divisions or in a new area which would be created to address these issues, committee members said.

"I firmly believe that there should be some courses in the Core Curriculum that focus on American ethnic minorities," said committee member S. Allan Counter, who directs the Harvard Foundation, a University agency founded in 1981 to address the concerns of minorities. "Everyone should [receive some] education about the people we live with in this society."

The committee stems from longstanding student complaints about the lack of such courses at Harvard, members said.

"A lot of students have felt that they lefthere empty because they never studied ethnicAmericans," said Judy Y. Shen '88, one of theundergraduate members of the group. "We've beenpushing for this since the 1970s."

"Harvard compared to other schools has beenvery resistant to the idea [of courses on ethnicgroups]," said committee member Keiko Nakamura, adrill instructor in Japanese.

However, the prognosis looks favorable forthese demands now, committee members said.

"I'm really happy that the administration hastaken concrete steps to get this committeeestablished," said Shen, who heads theFoundation's student advisory board.

The committee will be composed of eight or ninestudents and a comparable number of faculty andadministrators, Counter said.

Not all of the student members have beenselected yet but they will include representativesfrom various ethnic organizations and theUndergraduate Council, Counter said, adding thatthe group will probably hold its first meetingnext week.

Jewett was out of the office yesterday andcould not be reached for comment