Certificate in Ethnic & Racial Studies

New. Critical. Transformative. Interdisciplinary. The study of race, ethnicity, and Indigeneity with a focus on the experiences and perspectives of major underrepresented racial groups within the United States, at the intersections of gender, nation, class, sexuality, religion, and legal status.

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Ethnic and Racial Studies – Certificate

Ethnic and Racial Studies Minor Degree Program

Ethnic & Racial Studies, Certificate

Offered as an Academic Certificate

Ethnic & Racial Studies (ERS) is an interdisciplinary and comparative academic discipline that emerged in the United States in response to Civil Rights Era social reform movements and the dominance of Eurocentric education in universities. Scholars in ERS engage in studies of ethnicities, Indigeneity, diaspora, migration, colonization, slavery, white supremacy, systems of domination, race, and racism, alongside decolonization, social justice, resistance, sovereignty, and identity through the cultural and intellectual lens and traditions of Black, African American, Chicana/o/x, Latina/o/x, Indigenous, Native American, Asian, Native Pacific Islander, Jewish, Muslim, and other People of Color. Integrating various disciplines, ERS provides a supportive and challenging liberal arts education for all learners that generates scholarship, creativity, and community building. Students learn about themselves and the world through critical thinking, service learning, personal empowerment, and social responsibility.

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Degree Fit

Program Preparation

Students taking Ethnic & Racial Studies courses will develop their abilities to be culturally competent/agile/responsive and community-oriented human beings. They will learn about themselves and to communicate across differences, while cultivating social justice skills and theoretical frameworks that complement their major degree.

Degree Roadmap

Learners pursuing an Ethnic & Racial Studies Certificate will complete 28 credits. Introduction to Ethnic & Racial Studies and Native, Ethnic & Racial Studies in Action make up the certificate’s core courses. The core curriculum grounds students in the intellectual, theoretical, methodological, and practical aspects of the discipline. Additional courses from multiple disciplines across SOU offer a wide array of topics that can enhance any academic major. Students will also choose from diverse course offerings from Art History, Communication, Criminology & Criminal Justice, English, Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies, History, Music, Native American Studies, Sociology & Anthropology, and more!

Degree Integration

Learners pursuing an Ethnic & Racial Studies Certificate have opportunities to engage in service-learning and other activities to turn theory into action. A certificate in ERS will bolster any career, as the tools and capacities learned in ERS are highly sought after in fields such as education, business, criminal justice, journalism, new media, government, health care, and social services.