Written by Max Kronstadt
There are many valid critiques of the American education system. One I’ve never heard is that it doesn’t spend enough time focusing on Anglo-American history and culture. There is no need for a West in Time requirement at Colorado College. It promotes literacy in a discipline that the vast majority of CC students have studied time and time again, and furthers the Eurocentrism already largely ingrained in our education system.
The goal of the West in Time requirement, or at least my understanding of it, is to promote reflection on how the Anglo-American past affects our modern society. This is a seemingly worthwhile idea based on the faulty premise that such reflection isn’t already a staple of the CC curriculum.
“The West in Time requirement adds to the erasure of people of color in American education,” said senior Emily Lucas, Chiricahua Apache and member of the Native American Student Union. “It’s old, dead, white men in time.”
She took a class that fulfilled West in Time on the history of Latin America. The class spent about a week focusing on Europeans before they came to Latin America, and about two days on the indigenous people occupying the continent before the settlers arrived.
Sophomore Zunneh-bah Martin, Navajo & Modoc, plans to take a class on Western music but feels disengaged. “I would rather learn about other indigenous cultures or other cultures from around the world,” Martin said.
The Global Perspectives and Social Inequality requirements theoretically balance out the West in Time requirement; this idea, however, is fundamentally misguided. “To truly achieve a curriculum that fosters an understanding of diverse cultures and global history, the college should incorporate the study of different marginalized groups throughout all disciplines, rather than relegate them to two all-college requirements,” said Professor Claire Garcia, Director of Race, Ethnicity, and Migration Studies.
The Curriculum Executive Committee, consisting of faculty, staff, and two students, is currently addressing these very issues in a review of the broader curriculum that happens every 15 to 20 years at CC. One of the things they are considering is which of the all-college requirements are still valid and which should be rethought.
I strongly urge the committee to eliminate the West in Time requirement and incorporate global perspectives and social inequality into the broader curriculum across all academic disciplines.