THE TIP OF AN ICEBERG:
A Look at Western’s past and potential future for the College of Ethnic Studies.
Written by Chelsea Consolacion
The professor paused mid-lecture and scanned a sea of glowing laptop screens. “Pauline, can you tell us about your experience being Filipino?” echoed from thin lips.
Fifty pairs of eyes focused in her direction. She searched the room, trying to catch any face that was similar to her own, but found herself making eye contact with a white gaze waiting for her minimized response to be a brief lesson plan for the class. Pauline Elevazo answered so the lecture could continue.
Being singled out for her race is a familiar occurrence for Elevazo. Archives of meetings and newspapers from fifty years ago tells society of a similar detail of attitudes towards people of color.
In 1972, a Western Front article, Curtis Knight, former Chairman of the Black Student Union, wrote a column in the Western Front. Knight said that the newspaper itself was a contributor to racism as it didn’t reflect Black and/or marginalized perspectives on campus.
“First, as a part of the campus community, we feel we should, and must, have a voice in the campus newspaper,” Knight wrote in his first column on Feb. 4, 1972. In the days she wasn’t getting singled out in class, Elevazo was in a class more engaging, Critical Filipinx Issues, a course taught by Dr. Michael SchulzeOechtering, a professor in the Education and Social Justice minor and history department.
She said instructors who taught from an ethnic studies perspective knew when to drop discussions when they threatened students and their well-being. “I didn’t care about school at all before that,” she said. “This was the first time I actually had a professor who cared.”
So she got involved with a student organization, Students for Ethnic Studies, a group of students aiming to re-establish– yes, re-establish– Western Washington University’s College of Ethnic Studies.
Western’s Movement for Ethnic Studies
Western’s Black Student Union initiated the ethnic studies movement in a three hour meeting with administrators. Students presented a list of demands including hiring Black faculty members, recruiting Black students and improving the curriculum to be more representative, according to a Western Front article published on May 21, 1968.
Former university President, Dr. Charles J. “Jerry” Flora released a statement about the meeting that ran in the same article, “In making this personal commitment, it must be understood that the efforts toward realizing these goals must…be approved by the Board of Trustees,” the statement read.
After a year of negotiations, compromises and conditions, trustees approved of the program and appointed Dr. Ronald Williams as the first dean, according to the minutes from Aug. 28, 1969.
“They approved everything except the name ‘college,’” Wilfred Wasson, director of the Indigenous Studies program, said to the newspaper. “It is virtually a college except for the name.”
Although the program passed, the trustees rejected the proposal for college status, worried that racial tensions would increase and the college would tend toward separatism rather than integration, according to a previous Western Front article on Sept. 30, 1969.
A month later, they reconsidered their decision and Western’s College of Ethnic Studies was officially established alongside Fairhaven College and Huxley College of the Environment on Oct. 9, 1969, according to a previous Western Front article.
BSU wrote a letter in response to the college’s establishment, “It would be a misconception if we were to believe that these strides will erase racism. We at Western view these strides towards combating racism as a step in the right direction,” students said to the Western Front.
Continuing Advocacy for Ethnic Studies
Black Student Union members met with administrators to discuss the lack of support for the ethnic studies college, according to a column written by Knight on March 3, 1972.
“The shortage of faculty needed to make the college work threatens the existence of the program. While enrollment has tripled in the three years the college has been here, the growth of faculty members has not been in proportion.” Knight wrote, “The Provost has got to understand– we will not accept anything short of our needs.”
Former dean for the College of Ethnic Studies, Dr. Sergio Elizondo, wrote a letter concerning retention, promotion and tenure for faculty members. Approximately 50 students were in attendance when Elizondo presented his letter to trustees on May 4, 1972, according to Board of Trustees minutes.
The trustees passed a motion to table the discussion until their next regular meeting with more specific language from Elizondo. There are currently no digital archives of the following meeting.
Students in support of the College of Ethnic Studies knew that Elizondo was being delayed, and that there was a clear course of action.
On May 15, 1972, over 100 students of color occupied the Old Main wing located near the president’s office, according to an article published on May 19, 1972. The occupation lasted for two days, following the ongoing negotiations between the ethnic studies college and university officials. President Flora stated that he would direct two new faculty positions to the college in the fall.
“I’m very proud of all the students who have been able to procure this which was owing to us. It’s a shame on [Western] and a shame on the administration that it took so long,” Elizondo said.
The Fall of Western’s College of Ethnic Studies
In 1975, Western launched the Program Study wCommittee to evaluate colleges across campus. The committee sent out their first wave of questionnaires, which made the ethnic studies college faculty uneasy. “Some of the perceptions [in the questionnaire] seem to be quite dated.” Dr. Jesse Hiraoka, last dean for the college said in a Western Front article published on Nov. 7, 1975.
Based on the findings of the questionnaire, the college’s enrollment numbers were dropping. The committee recommended a dissolution of the College of Ethnic Studies, backed with an endorsement from former university president, Dr. Paul Olscamp, according to the Western Front article published on April 16, 1976.
Hiraoka questioned the methods used to evaluate the college, and felt it took time to establish a newer program. However, the committee moved forward with dissolving the college, so Hiraoka proposed integrating the ethnic studies curriculum into the human services program at the Board of Trustees meeting held on June 5, 1975.
In attendance at the meeting was former President Flora, who suggested that President Olscamp evaluate the curriculum and report back to the Board in September. There are currently no digital archives of Sept. 1975 Board of Trustee meeting minutes.
Hiraoka held an informal press hearing about his proposal to the trustees, “I don’t think the way ethnic studies is now structured fits the future needs of students. It has to have a fuller context for looking at the world in a [multicultural] setting,” Hiraoka said to the Western Front, published on Nov. 4, 1975. “When the College of Ethnic Studies was created, nothing concrete was worked out to give it a lasting place inside the college structure.”
In the book “WWU! As it Was,” published in 2004, former President Flora said he supported the college but wondered if closeted bigotry played a role in the college’s fall.
“I really had hoped that our little college would be a place where people of different ethnic groups came together and would foster fundamental investigation into the business of ethnic difference,” President Flora wrote in the book. “But it never had a chance. Shame on us!”
President Olscamp began his seven year presidency in 1975, according to a Western Today memoriam for his passing on Oct. 14, 2014. During his time at Western, the business and economics college was established alongside the fine and performing arts colleges, but notably Western’s governance structure.
“Gone would be the all-university senate, replaced by a faculty senate, Associated Students board, administrators association and staff employees council.” Olscamp’s memoriam wrote.
The Western Front reported on the university’s last duty regarding the ethnic studies college on April 15, 1977. Labeled as a ‘housekeeping’ agenda item, Western’s All-College Senate unanimously voted to reassign ethnic senators to at-large positions starting on July 1, ethnic studies senators were not present.
“That is the time the [College of Ethnic Studies] will formally close doors,” The Western Front reported in 1977. Today’s Re-establishment Movement Almost fifty years later, Elevazo and Hunter Eider co-chaired Students for Ethnic Studies, founded by former Western students Erick Yanzon, Realia Harris, Aleyda Cervantes, Enrique Hernandez, Lung Le and Jonathon Pendleton in 2017.
Anne Lee, former Associated Students VP for Student Life and SES board member, said ethnic studies offers a critical eye on whiteness as a systemic issue, not an individual issue. By being encouraged to look at their educational experience through a critical lens, Lee recognized the intentional patterns of power structures throughout American history.
“We can’t solve the issues of students of color without talking about whiteness critically,” Lee said. “[I was] able to name a lot of things in my own education, whether it was erasure of my own identity [or] how whiteness permeates everything.”
The AS elections passed a referendum in support the revitalization of the College of Ethnic Studies, in 2018. Over 80% of students who voted in the AS elections voted in favor of the college’s re-establishment.
In the spring of 2019, Students for Ethnic Studies endorsed and successfully helped secure Schulze-Oechtering’s position to teach Comparative Ethnic Studies in Fairhaven College. Following their progress, Washington State Legislature enacted a bill requiring K-12 public schools to integrate ethnic studies education by July 28. Elevazo said that Western is a step behind.
Lee worries for students at Woodring College, “Western is known for their education programs for teachers and so if we’re going to have K-12 teachers coming to Western to become teachers and then they teach ethnic studies curriculum, wouldn’t it be better for us to have prepared teachers?” Lee said.
For now, Students for Ethnic Studies will continue advocating for the college by holding events to inform the campus community. Incoming Co-chairs, Martha Jeanice and Michaela Budde, will continue the legacy in order to re-establish Western’s College of Ethnic Studies permanently.
