Some UC Santa Cruz students reacted angrily to news of the suspension of the American studies program during an informational hearing Monday afternoon.

“The separation is making us angry," says UCSC student Moses Massenburg, a fourth-year student. "We need to be part of the conversation before you make what appears to be top-down decisions.” 

He suggested that the students could have saved the major through fundraising and other mechanisms.

Professor Eric Porter, chairman of the American Studies department, organized the meeting for declared American studies majors on Monday. It was attend by about 40 students, three American studies professors, and interim humanities dean, William Ladusaw. 

The program's faculty voted to suspend the major at UCSC last week, with admission into the major ending July 1, 2010. For the next two years, the major will enter a “teach out” mode. The curriculum will be organized to guarantee that all declared students are able to fulfill the major’s requirements.

Porter explained that the decision to suspend the major had to do with the economic crisis at the university.

“In this climate of resource scarcity, and with people leaving the department, you just can’t keep this major going with five people,” says Porter.

Ladusaw added that decreasing staff is a trend that has been present for more than a decade.

“We now have fewer faculty in the humanities division than we had in 1999," he says. "And we have more students."

There are 125 students enrolled in the major, and around 30 are expected to declare the major by the end of the year. 

Porter stressed that his colleagues would continue to discuss ways to rebuild the major and would be open to students joining in on the discussion.

“We’re thinking of this as a time out,” says Porter.

“We need to have and continue an inclusive conversation about what type of major, and under what structure, should be built,” says Porter, who suggested bringing prominent professors of ethnic and American studies to UCSC with program-building skills.

But many students were skeptical, especially after seeing the community studies major go out the same way earlier this year. 

“How do you expect to rebuild a more vibrant major in the midst of educational crisis?" says Elena Brown, an American studies major. "I just don’t see how we’re going to save this major when they’ve been slashing the humanities department. First it was journalism, then community studies, and now American studies. Let’s be real.”

Professors said other routes were explored.

“We spent a great deal of time thinking of alternative scenarios and if we could merge with another program, but there just wasn’t any energy around it,” says American studies professor Kimberly Lau.

Some students expressed concern that the termination of the major would jeopardize their chances of getting into graduate schools. Lau assured them that applying to graduate school would not be affected by whether the major was still on the books two years from now. 

“Letters of recommendation are really the most important," says Lau. "Graduate schools know this is out of your control."

More than a dozen people lamented the suspension on a Facebook page noting the major's end.

Some noted that UCSC is the only UC campus that does not have an ethnic studies department—and American studies offered the closest substitute for ethnic studies and critical race studies.

“With the suspension and possible termination of American studies, we also lose a certain type of student with the discipline to think and understand the development of U.S. politics and culture through multiple perspectives," wrote Shawn Freeman, a fourth-year student, in a public note on the social media site. "However, let's not forget, we also lose more of the already limited access of courses based in queer studies.”

Graduates also felt strongly and commented on the decision. 

“Taking classes on Marxist thought in American culture, the arts in America, Chinese America, and the institutions of the U.S. in an exceptional and diverse student body, including many activists, students of color and student parents, this white girl from Oakland was profoundly transformed,” wrote one graduate, Heather Tidrick. She graduated from the American studies department in 1998 an went on to work with the Roma (“Gypsy”) rights movement in Hungary.