In a letter published Feb. 3, Professor Larry Gross complained about “academic departments who devalue and dismiss the work of ethnic faculty and ignore the voice of the ethnic studies programs.”

I would like to assure the ISU community that the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies is not such a department.

All of our members share a deep commitment to cultural pluralism.

And we have more than our share of campus leaders in this regard, including the Director of Latino/a Studies, the Director of Asian Studies, the Director of African Studies and a co-founder and former co-Director of African-American Studies.

A member of Religious Studies program has also been published in the area of American Indian Studies.

When a member with a joint appointment in an ethnic studies program comes up for promotion and tenure, a special P & T committee is formed, carefully designed to ensure that “the voice of the ethnic studies programs” plays an absolutely essential role.

The committee is doubled from its normal size, with half of its six members representing ethnic studies programs, one selected by the candidate, two by the director of the relevant program (the candidate also selects one of the three people representing the department).

The P&T committee then solicits letters from leading scholars in the relevant ethnic studies field, with the director of the program in question actively participating in the selection of these external reviewers.

The content of the external letters from these experts, and the recommendation of the P&T committee with specialists in ethnic studies from Iowa State, are taken extremely seriously by the eligible voters in the department.

There may be academic departments to which Professor Gross’ complaint applies.

But the one to which he belongs is not one of them.

Tony Smith

Chairman

Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies