At 6:20pm today, Dean Buell emailed members of the CPC working group in Asian American Studies with the results of the CAP’s deliberations on the tenure-line requests for faculty in Asian American Studies.
The CAP has approved two tenure-track Asian Americanist hires, one in American Studies and one in Religion. One faculty search for a senior scholar to be appointed in American Studies will be conducted in the 2019-2020 academic year, and the second search will be conducted in the 2020-2021 academic year, “open-rank but likely with preference for an early-career scholar” in Religion.
The hiring of these two faculty specializing in Asian American Studies will play a critical role in finally establishing an Asian American Studies program at Williams. As for immediate next steps, we are envisioning student involvement in the hiring process, the formation of a program headed by a Committee of Educational Affairs (CEA) Working Group on Asian American Studies once the two faculty hires arrive, and then a hire exclusively in Asian American Studies, unlike the joint hires in Religion and American Studies.
We sincerely thank members of WAAAAN (Williams Asian and Asian American Alumni Network) for emailing President Mandel, Provost Love, and Dean Buell with statements in support of the CPC Working Group's report on Asian American Studies. In addition, we are immensely grateful to student and faculty allies both on campus and across the country at other colleges and universities who have supported us at our teach-ins, photo campaigns, demonstration at Previews in 2018, and in other initiatives.
This opens up a new chapter of the thirty-year-old Asian American Studies Movement at Williams; while we are excited for the faculty searches, these lines do not equate to a program. There is much more work still left to be done. We will continue to hold the administration accountable and make sure this necessary first step towards a program leads to its fruition.
Stay tuned for updates.