New Minor to Explore Mason's Diversity

By Broadside News Editor Asma Chaudhary

A new immigration studies minor will be added to the university catalog next semester. In fall 2008, the new minor will launch in an effort to further explore George Mason University’s diversity.

According to a recent e-mail sent out to various degree program students from Research Assistant Sarah Curry, the new minor will allow more opportunities for the Mason community as well as those involved with the Mason Project on Immigration.

“The minor in immigration studies is likely to resonate with Mason students, give the significance and intensity of the immigration debate throughout the Northern Virginia region and in the light of the great diversity among the student body itself,” Curry said in the e-mail.

In order to complete the 15 credit minor, students must maintain a grade of C or 2.0 for each course applied toward the program. The courses contain a range of studies in anthropology, sociology, history, english, government, conflict analysis and language.

The first three-credit course is required, which is ANTH 340: Comparative Perspectives on Immigration. Also, one three-credit course must be chosen from these options:

• ANTH 331: Refugees
• GOVT 445: Human Rights
• CONF 302: Identity and Conflict

These classes are meant to provide students with world-round perspectives about migration studies.

The final aspect of the minor involves six elective credits, which can be any two courses discussing socio-politics and ethnicity. Courses under this category include:

• FRLN 385: Topics in the Socio-Politics of Language
• NCLC 361: Neighborhood, Community and Identity
• SOCI 332: Sociology of Urban Communities
• SPAN 430: Spanish in the United States
• ENG 479: Ethnicity and Migration

According to Mason’s university catalog, “The minor combines perspectives from the humanities and the social sciences in order to provide an interdisciplinary and comparative understanding of the immigrant experience, ethnic identity, assimilation, and ethnic exclusion and conflict, and refugee situations.”

For more information, students can either visit the Center for Social Science Research or e-mail Dr. Debra Lattanzi Shutika at dshutika@gmu.edu.