Student activism led to culture requirement changes

The Tufts faculty revamped the culture requirements last Wednesday by voting to include two additional cultures -- Asian American and Latino/Latina studies.

Much of the struggle towards revising the culture requirement came from student activism. Students led by the Asian-American Curricula Transformation (AACT) and Latino Curricula Transformation (LCT) successfully lobbied for the change.

"This is a definite example of AACT's actions," Wen Cai, the Asian American Community Representative to the Senate said. "These people are up for making changes on campus."

Others within the senate agreed with Cai's assessment of their work. "This is a great example of just how passionate Tufts students are," Tufts Community Union (TCU) senator Rafi Goldberg said.

A large amount of student effort was needed solely to put the culture option change on the agenda of Wednesday's faculty meeting. Cai said that it took a number of efforts to convince faculty to bring up the proposal.

Though faculty meetings are open to anyone interested in attending, they are not well-publicized and hard for students to find. "We're trying to make the process [of voicing concerns to faculty] more open to student involvement," senior AACT Cecilia Chen said.

"People don't know you can attend faculty meetings. It's been very difficult for us to find out when or how to attend the meetings," said Chen. "We're also making the University accountable to withholding its standards."

Students have been concerned with changing the cultural requirement for over seven years. In 1997 the Task Force on Race brought up the issue of unfairness in the culture requirement.

The issue came to a head this year with a petition given to the faculty by LCT and AACT. The petition wasn't signed by a specific group but rather "Concerned Tufts Students."

The petition's central argument reads, "Making this adjustment would not only make us well-rounded people but also provide us with the knowledge and cultural competency needed to be productive in both our personal and professional lives after graduation."

AACT and LCT enlisted the help of many groups across campus. The TCU Senate walked around campus asking students to sign the petition. "We weren't the main group," TCU president Chike Aguh said. "We've helped them where we can." The Senate's role was "to assist in garnering support," TCU Treasurer Josh Belkin said.

The temporary proposal for the addition of the two cultures was produced at the faculty meeting after students submitted the petition. "The proposal was written partially in response to the petition," Cai said. "I don't think without us writing the petition or knocking on everyone's door, it wouldn't have been on the [faculty's] agenda this year."

Students found it unfair that African American and Native American courses counted towards the requirement while Asian American and Latino courses did not. "Addition of the courses will broaden their range. More people will be interested in taking classes to fulfill the requirement," senior AACT member Tom Chen said. "It was blatant that parity was needed."

A wider range of interested students will help the AACT pursue its ultimate goal. The AACT's biggest concern is to get a tenured faculty member to teach Asian American studies at Tufts. A tenured faculty would then be a step away from creating programs within a yet-to-be-determined department.

Hispanic culture and a number of Asian culture courses already exist which do count for the requirements.