Support the South Asian Studies Initiative

We would like to salute the work of the South Asian Studies Committee for their in-depth research on the important issue of increasing South Asian Studies offerings at Duke. We think that this addition to the Duke curriculum will allow all Duke students to benefit by expanding their horizons and allowing those with a specific interest to focus on the area. The fact that 60 percent of the survey respondents who wanted more of a focus on South Asian Studies are not South Asian presents a mandate to the DSG and the Duke Administration from all students to act on this issue. Though both the article and editorial yesterday emphasized the importance of having more South Asian language classes, we would also like to highlight the significance of adding more classes about South Asia to many popular departments, such as public policy, economics and political science. These are the departments where the report shows the most demand for classes, and where we are lagging the furthest behind our peer institutions.

We are excited to push for all of the short term recommendations in the report, including the creation of a permanent South Asian Studies committee and encouraging departments to bring in visiting professors who specialize in South Asian Studies in the next year. We encourage all students who are interested in the proposed South Asian Studies classes to come forward and help show student support for this exciting initiative.

Amanda Tong

Vice President for ICC-Elect, DSG

Pratt '09

Chelsea Goldstein

Vice President for Academic Affairs-Elect, DSG

Trinity '10