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Betsy Hoffman surprised absolutely no one by resigning
last week as president of the University of Colorado. Her
successor will face the same problems, of course, but
there's some truth in the saying a new broom sweeps
clean.
And if the new broom is willing to sweep, at
least two of the major problems at our state's flagship
university could be solved quickly.
For starters, the new president should eliminate the football program. Without it, there aren't recruiting scandals that involve minors, alcohol, sex and drugs. Without football, no football-camp cash boxes. No football, no players subject to rape allegations. No football, no assistant coaches to be accused of having sex with student trainers.
But doesn't a big-time university need a big-time football program? The University of Chicago enjoys a good reputation, and it hasn't fielded a football team since 1939.
There's the argument that football offers educational opportunities. There's also the fact that overall, 64 percent of CU students graduate within six years of starting college. But only 44 percent of football players do.
The football program is a tremendous drain on the university's reputation and management resources -- the time spent coping with scandals is time that the administration can't spend lobbying the legislature for money, recruiting talented faculty or improving the library.
Colorado's college football fans would hardly be deprived, for CSU and Air Force would still play Division I football along the Front Range, along with Wyoming in nearby Laramie.
There's also the Ward Churchill Problem,
which
could quickly be solved by eliminating the entire
Department of Ethnic Studies. It's hardly a necessity,
since the university managed to operate until 1993 without
one.
It's misnamed, because its focus is on Afro-American
studies, American Indian studies, Asian American studies,
Chicano/a studies,
where students gain substantive
knowledge and expertise in one of the four specific
racial/ethnic fields,
according to the departmental web
site.
Other ethic groups in Colorado history -- the Irish miners of Leadville, the Italian quarry workers of Salida, the Slavs of the steel mills in Pueblo, the Jews trying to farm in 1882 near Cotopaxi, the Volgadeutsch of Weld County, the Balkan coal miners slain at Ludlow, to name a few -- are apparently unworthy of study, or even mention, at the University of Colorado these days.
So the Department of Ethnic Studies does not bother to study more than four ethnic groups, which is made clear in a required class, Foundations of
Ethnic Studies. The catalog says that this course
applies analytic perspectives, especially racial
formation theory, to the experiences of the four principle
[sic] peoples of color in the United States.
The catalog listing does not explain why it sounds
racist, at least to my ears, to be making assumptions based
on skin color. Nor does it explain why, as they imply, a
Seminole and a Paiute should be grouped together
culturally, but Caucasians and Native Americans should not
-- even if they're married. Nor does it explain why people
who are presumably educated don't know the difference
between principle
and principal.
But the program does empower students of color to
move beyond being objects of study toward being subjects of
their own social realities, with voices of their
own.
I have no idea what being subjects of their own
social realities
means, but I do know that Bill
Hosokawa once edited these pages, and spoke with a voice of
his own. And that Langston Hughes and Toni Morrison offer
voices of their own, as do Rudolfo Anaya and N. Scott
Momaday, and they managed to do so before there were ethnic
studies programs.
Are the issues of race, sex and class
worthy of
study? Certainly -- but in literature classes and sociology
classes and history classes, classes that a wide variety of
students take, rather than just ethnic-studies majors.
So CU's next president ought to terminate that
department, as well as the football team. That won't
necessarily get more money from the legislature, or change
the party school
image, but it would be a good start
on building a better University of Colorado.
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