CENTER FOR CHICANO STUDIES
University of California, Santa Barbara
South Hall, Room 4518
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-6040
Phone (805) 893-3895
Fax (805) 893-3895
Acting Director's Statement: by Norma Cantú
A. The Acting Director's Statement
I. Initial Goals
The Center for Chicano Studies at UCSB, founded in 1969 in answer to demands for a venue within UCSB whereby Chicano studies could flourish as a research area and provide support to students, faculty and the community, has traditionally embraced the development of programs aimed at addressing questions of community education and Chicano/Latino under-representation among undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty at the University of California. Since its inception, it has served as the campus ORU for sponsored research in Chicana/Chicano Studies and has evolved into a unit that develops faculty research initiatives in Chicana/o Studies, participates in the recruitment and retention of Chicano/Latino faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates, and works with the larger Chicano/Latino community in the local area. To date, the Center for Chicano Studies is one of only two ORU's in the University of California system devoted to such goals.
II. Current Mission
The Center's current Mission Statement clearly asserts its commitment to the students, faculty and staff at the University of California. The Center supports a research infrastructure where Chicana/o Studies research at UCSB serves the national and international needs of the field. Among the various activities that the Center supports is the hosting of national and international scholars engaged in Chicano Studies research. Additionally, it supports activities that bring together the small number of outstanding UCSB faculty who engage in Chicana/o Studies by strengthening the development of an interdisciplinary research program. One distinctive feature of the field of Chicana/o Studies is its intellectual mosaic that engages methodologies and theoretical concerns that traverse diverse social science and humanities disciplines. This cross-fertilization produces an interdisciplinarity that often challenges conventional epistemologies while creating knowledge grounded in the lived experiences of Chicano/Latino communities. Hence the Center's emphasis on faculty work groups, collaborative projects, lectures, symposia, and publications that reflect this set of concerns.
As part of advancing a national presence in Chicana/o Studies research the Center supports a Visiting Research Scholar and, with the Department of Chicano Studies, the Luis Leal Endowed Chair. The Visiting Research Scholar involves a national search which heightens awareness of the Center's research program by prominent scholars in the field. In addition, the Visiting Research Scholar is co-sponsored by an academic department and has faculty recruitment potential. During 1998-99, the Visiting Research Scholar was Professor Norma E. Cantú, Professor of English, Texas A&M International University, who also served as the Acting Director of the Center. The Luis Leal Endowed Chair in Chicano Studies is designed to cultivate new research initiatives and projects that foster collaboration between the Center and the Department of Chicano Studies faculty. Appointed the Luis Leal Endowed Chair and Professor of Chicano Studies acclaimed literary critic, author and poet, Maria Herrera-Sobek serves the Center in an number of roles. Dr. Herrera-Sobek served as Chair of the Advisory Committee to the Center during the 1998-1999 academic year, and as an associate Director for the fall quarter.
In 1998-99 the Center sponsored colloquia and fostered mentorship activities between faculty, graduate students and undergraduates. In addition to co-sponsoring a number of activities, the center sponsored two major events during the year: the Routes of Culture Symposium, and The Conference Power, Resistance and Social Change: Chicano Studies and El Plan de Santa Barbara.(link to program) The former brought scholars from UC and other campuses to grapple with questions of culture and migration whereas the latter celebrated the establishment of the Center, the Coleccion Tloque Nahaque and the Dept for Chicano Studies at UCSB with a gathering of students, faculty and community members who shared valuable historical and theoretical perspectives as well as providing a framework for future activity in the field of Chicano Studies.
In addition to these two significant events, the Center co-sponsored a number of events to bring to UCSB and the local community speakers, films and art exhibits including a year-long speaker series Visions from the Heart: Chicana/Chicano (Re)Presentations from the Heart, a gathering of twelve Chicana visual artists, and the exhibit of Rosa M's work at the Multicultural Center, co-sponsored with the Department of Chicano Studies, the Multicultural Center and a number of other groups on campus.
The Center, involved in developing initiatives to strengthen the recruitment and retention of faculty who specialize in Chicana/o Studies, provides release time for non-tenured faculty in the Department of Chicano Studies. Moreover, faculty who are interested in developing a proposal for extramural funds can be provided with funding to support release from teaching one course with the approval of the relevant agencies.
The Center prioritizes research initiatives and training activities for graduate and undergraduate students. Each grant processed through the Center typically offers support to at least one graduate student and often several undergraduates. Each year the Center invites all graduate students doing advanced (post M.A.) research in Chicana/o or Latina/o Studies to submit proposals for funding support. Typically six to eight projects are supported in amounts that range from $500 to $2,000. Several organized activities supported graduate students from various disciplines during the year. The monthly meriendas provided a space for Chicana/o and Latina/o graduate students on campus to congregate, socialize and share their research interests, while the Graduate Student Research Colloquium allowed the 1998-1999 recipients of the Graduate Student Research fellowships to present their research findings to faculty and other graduate students in a scholarly yet informal fashion. The Center also offers a limited amount of funding to students who have been invited to present Chicana/o or Latina/o Studies research at conferences.
At the Center, the Undergraduate Student Internship Program continued to flourish during 1998-1999. This program, coordinated by faculty and the Center's Community Outreach Assistant, strives to enhance the research skills of undergraduate students interested in Chicana/o Studies by providing stipends to work on faculty projects. In each of the three years of its existence, this program has supported eight-ten undergraduates each year. During 1997-98, the undergraduate interns and the coordinators successfully developed a Teen Center in neighboring Isla Vista which officially opened October 1, 1998. Throughout Summer 1999, the Teen Center offered tutorial workshops to junior high and high school students.
As the only organized research unit at UCSB devoted to the study of Chicana/o and Latina/o populations, the Center is often called upon to provide information to local community agencies, community leaders, state and national entities as well as to the local campus community. Thus, public service forms an integral part of the Center's mission. Dissemination of sponsored research to meet this demand, however, poses an ongoing dilemma. The faculty who are involved in the Center attend numerous community functions and meet individually with community activists and leaders as part of the process of developing connections that can lead to extramural funding initiatives. In addition to the funding potential of such interactions, support of cultural and academic activities of constituencies which have played important roles in the development of Chicana/o Studies offer important opportunities to enhance UCSB-Community relationships. Among initiatives that furthered this goal were the visits by faculty and the Acting Director to various elementary and middle schools, presentations to community groups and support for community activities.
