The graduate council of the Academic Senate endorsed on Monday
the departmental proposal submitted by the César E.
Chávez Center for interdisciplinary instruction in Chicana/o
studies and said the legendary labor organizer’s name could
stay in the department title.
The senate had expressed concern in keeping the name César
E. Chávez, fearing it would set a precedent for other
departments to use personal names in their titles.
“The university does name schools, but we don’t name
departments because we think the emphasis should be on the academic
identity of what the department does,” said graduate council
chairman William Roy.
Student representatives present at the meeting said the name was
necessary if the departmentalization was to pass.
“We come in and hear Chicano studies at UCLA and we
associate it with Chávez. Since the center is named after him,
it has a philosophy; so by taking that away you’re
disassociating that from the center,” said Eligio Martinez,
undergraduate representative for the Academic Senate’s
undergraduate council.
But given the unique history of the Chávez Center, the
council thought the name could be kept without setting a
precedent.
Roy said if the university were to name a department after any
individual, César E. Chávez is a name that would be
strongly supported. The council felt the university should
memorialize him in some way.
The council unanimously endorsed departmentalization of the
center. A second vote with a strong majority endorsed that the new
department be named the César E. Chávez Department of
Chicana and Chicano Studies.
“It was a positive vote,” said Abel Valenzuela,
acting chairman for the Chávez center.
Currently, the Chávez Center is the only proposed
department in the entire University of California system to be
named after an individual.
The approval by the Graduate Council allows the proposal to be
forwarded to the executive board of the Academic Senate for
review.
For some, the approval further signifies coming closer to
obtaining validation of the Chicana/o studies discipline and
recognition of the struggle to get there.
“It’s just a lot of positive emotions and positive
feelings, because after 11 years that the hunger strike took place,
that dream of having a department is finally here, it’s on
the verge of existing,” Martinez said, referring to the 1993
hunger strike that prompted the establishment of the center.
The executive board has not yet received official word from the
Graduate Council regarding its approval of the proposal. Once an
approval letter is received, the proposal will come under review
for the next board meeting.
How long the executive board will take to reach a decision on
the proposal has not yet been determined.
Academic Senate executive board member John Tucker hopes the
board will come to a decision at its next regular meeting, but is
not completely certain.
Both students and faculty working closely with
departmentalization are hopeful the outcome will be positive given
the feedback from the committees.
“We’re very pleased with the outcome and the support
we’ve received from the different senate review
committees,” Valenzuela said.
If passed, the proposal will move on to the chair of the
Academic Senate, and then over to Executive Vice Chancellor Daniel
Neuman for final approval.