Embedded Files
Typical departments at the university are about -12 faculty.
By becoming our own department in 1994, we gained more local control over our budget,hiring, and decision-making. While we were in Teacher Education, it would often require 2–3 years of advocacy to achieve a single faculty position. And, faculty outside of our area controlled our tenure and promotion processes.
We proposed to the Dean's Advisory Council that we become a department. DeanGregorich placed the issue to a vote of the entire School faculty. Several members of other departments assisted us in this effort, usually through the Bilingual Core Faculty.
We won the vote. The Dean recommended to the President, and we became our own department in 1994. Dr. Forrest Davis was interviewed and selected by the committee in Teacher Education, and became the first new hire in our new department of Bilingual/Multicultural Education.
Duane Campbell was elected as the first Chair, and Katy Romo was hired as the first Department Secretary. Rene Merino was elected as the second Chair in 1997. Since becoming anew department we have added several new faculty. By 1997 we had prepared over 320 bilingual teachers for the Sacramento region. Dr. Forrest Davis became the graduate coordinator in 1997. Dr. Pia Wong became the graduate coordinator in 2001.
In 1994, our ally Dr. Diane Cordero de Noriega became the Dean of the School of Education. In 1996 we began our single subject program based on the long history of success with the multiple subject program. In 1996, California voters passed Proposition 187, and in 1998, they passed Proposition 227 to eliminate bilingual education.
In 1994, our ally Dr. Diane Cordero de Noriega became the Dean of the School of Education. In 1996 we began our single subject program based on the long history of success with the multiple subject program. In 1996, California voters passed Proposition 187, and in 1998, they passed Proposition 227 to eliminate bilingual education.
In 1996 the department completed a review process. The mission of the department, as adopted by the faculty is:
“Our primary goals are to prepare outstanding teachers of bilingual and multicultural education who in turn prepare their students to fully participate in a democratic, pluralistic society.”
Between 1984-1999, Dr. Rene Merino has been a primary investigator and fundraiser for students financial support through his role as director of the Cross Cultural Resource Center. These Title VII funds also fund our annual student retreats.
The CCRC housed a number of important projects including OLE, the HEP Program, International Studies, and others.
Each year the department hosts a multicultural conference for students and graduates of the program. ( See list of speakers below) The recent chair of the conference has been Maggie Beddow.
In 1999 Dr. Victoria Jew became the first person to retire from the faculty of BMED. Prof. Hugo Chacon became the mentor for the Multicultural/Multilingual Teacher Preparation Association in 1999. Since 1980, we have established a pattern of faculty rotating the role of Center coordinators. In 2001, the coordinators were Dr. Sue Heredia, Gloria Hernandez, Harold Murai, and Adele Arellano.
Support in the society for bilingual education and multicultural education declined significantly in the 1990's. In 1993, California Governor Pete Wilson won re-election by presenting a hostile, divisive campaign, which blamed the economic crisis on immigrants. The Prop. 187 campaigns demonstrated that anti -immigrant campaigns could mobilize angry voters. Anti immigrant campaigns continued in 1998, whenCalifornia voters banned bilingual education in most schools through Props. 227.
Students and some faculty in our programs were intensely involved in these campaigns. The election defeats allowed political leaders and other faculty to challenge the basic premises of our department's existence. While political defeats imperiled our efforts, the growing diversity of our student population increased our strength within the College of Education until 2008.
In the 70's and 80's, retreats, and workshops had developed a unity of purpose among the faculty, which often assisted us to advance the social justice agenda within the College of education and to establish the Department.
In the 90's the Department was able to hire several new faculty. New faculty, along with the increasing reliance upon hiring part time faculty who often did not meet and dialogue with the tenured faculty about curricular matters, along with retirements, created a new, more diverse faculty who at times did not share a relative common series of experiences in the political struggle for social change. By 1997 individualistinitiatives toward change between cycles of the Center increased and unity of purpose among the faculty declined. Fewer dialogues occurred among faculty, particularly with the part time and supervisory faculty. A lack of curriculum unity, sequence and coherence became more pronounced. The general perspective in the Center changed from an emphasis on Civil Rights and organizing to an emphasis on diversity.
In 1995, after we became a department, the first Multicultural Conference was offered to our graduates and our host teachers as a strategy to build a network of support in the community. By 1998 Dr. Jose Cintrón and Maggie De Leon became Co-chairs of the event and securedmodest university funding. Conservative forces conducted an assault on Whole Language approaches to reading in the state. These efforts also challenged most efforts to serve Language Minority Students with special programs. The OLÈ/Migrant Education project directed by Dr. Nadeen Ruiz and Dr. Jose Cintrón produced a counter force of support for teachers and student teachers seeking to build upon nativelanguage skills and the strengths of students.
Rene Merino was chair of the Department from 1997-1999. He retired inJan.2000. Dr. Harold Murray became the new Department Chair. Dr. Victoria Jew retired in June of 1999.
In the Fall of 1999, the Department hired its first Distinguished Visiting Professor.
This is a project to have on faculty excellent faculty from the local schools, adding an important practicing teacher dimension to our work.
BMED plans in the period until 2006 called for the department to work with a select number of schools where we work over time. Our intention is to develop excellent student teaching sites. We have been working with Beamer Elementary in Woodland for some 14 years.Beamer had some excellent host teachers, most of them our graduates.
In 1998 we received a grant for a technology program at Beamer. We received$40,000 to get the schools computers. The project was to help our student teachers to use technology in their teaching. We provided the technology. This use of technology in teaching is one of the new standards required for all teacher preparation programs.
Since about 1998, Dr. Sue Heredia has been working with a select number of schools in West Sacramento. This process of concentrating on a few schools with a particular focus is called a Professional Development School.
A new grant was secured to design and develop new mechanisms for working with the development of Professional Development Schools. In 2001 Dr. Pia Wong became director of this project. Prof. Hugo Chacón has developed an on-site science class as a part of this work.
Faculty and supervisors meet together regularly dialogue and improve the program.
The Bilingual Teacher Prepartion Center is much more than a series of courses. It should be an integrated package of experiences. This requires that both the faculty and supervisors be talking with each other. When we know what the supervisors are doing, and when they know what we are doing, this provides more unity of purpose in our center. This unity of purpose emphasizes a diversity perspective in place of the prior civil rights emphasis.
We should be modeling this unity of purpose for our students. This is one of a few basic issues which, as you know, prevents schools from functioning well. We should be modeling inter faculty dialogue, cooperation and sequence.
Frequent faculty meetings are essential to provide a quality program for our students. Faculty meetings allow us to adapt and modify our courses, our assignments, and our work. They allow us feedback about how the students are doing in their field placements.
Update: Fall 2004 Bilingual/multicultural ed department marks 10-year anniversary
The bilingual/multicultural education department marked a major milestone this semester—its first decade. The Sacramento State department is one of only three such departments in the CSU system and is the only one that carries the bilingual designation.
The department’s first chair, Duane Campbell. says that the program’s roots are in the Civil Rights movement. “Teachers in most urban areas face students from a variety of social classes and cultural and language groups,” Campbell says. “The majority of the teacher candidates do not share the middle-class, European American culture common to college-educated teachers.”
The basis for organizing the BMED effort.
1. Between 1970 and 2000, universities were viable community of struggle. They were a place to oppose the hegemony of imperial, racist ideologies in our society.
2. In organizing, need to recognize and plan for class differences between private universities , elite universities, and lower strata universities serving the working class.
A Brief Timeline of this equity effort.
1968–1973 Mexican American Education Project
Cesar Chavez visits campus and works with students.
1972–74 Teacher Corps Project
1974–1979 Experienced Teacher Fellowship
1974 Robert Segura Director Title VII project
Rene Merino Co-director
1973 Begin Urban Teacher effort
1974 West Sacramento Teacher Training Center
1976 Students provide leadership for Pro-United Farm
Workers—Proposition 22
1976 First effort on Asian Language Students
1976 West Sacramento Center becomes Bilingual Center; faculty include
Marjorie Lee, Rene Merino, Duane Campbell, Barbara Schmidt,
and Robert Segura
1978 Dolores Huerta makes a presentation to our students
1980 Paulo Freire spends 3 days with our students. John McFadden was host.
1994 Students resist Proposition 187
1995 We establish the Bilingual/Multicultural Education Department
1996 We begin the annual Multicultural Education conferences. The
Department begins the Single Subject B/CLAD program
1997 Student and faculty resist Proposition 227
1998 Adele Arellano directs the Single Subject Program
We begin to participate in discussions of professional development
school projects.
2008. Faculty vote to re-organize the College of Education and to eliminate the department.
2012. The department is organized out of existence.
BMED History
by Duane Campbell, Fall 2004
A movement to monitor and control teachers and teacher preparation has been gaining strength in the nation and the state for over a decade. This movement came to impact our Department.
The first legislative vehicle for this growing control was California SB 2042. This legislation provided substantive power to establish standards for new teachers, and assessment devices to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing and the State Board of Education. This effort was driven by the major corporate driven view of school change, which gained ascendance since 1994 (See Campbell, 2000).
For our purposes, a major effect of 2042 and the subsequent standards was toreduce and eliminate mandates for multicultural curriculum and experiences in the preparation of teachers. A major part of the FTE (budget) of the department was generated by
teaching EDBM 104/105, Education for a Democratic Pluralistic Society. In 2000 This course was required of all students in teacher preparation.
The department faculty spent a series of days reflecting upon and re-examining our own Multicultural/Multilingual Teacher Preparation Center. We used a process centered approach to reflection guided by Dr. Pia Wong. The processes engaged many new faculty in re-designing the Center. By 2003, a new design emerged. The course work remained substantially the same, but the field experiences were re-designed and plans were made to integrate the course work and field experiences. The new design moved the program substantially toward a standards-based prescription andassessment perspective. The faculty plans maintained requirements for multicultural preparation for our students in BMED.
By 2008, a group of faculty in BMED and faculty in the School of Education decided to re-organize the College of Education in a manner that eliminated BMED.
Sacramento Bilingual Education department has been re-organized out of existence.
The Bilingual Multicultural Education Dept. at CSU Sacramento was established in 1994 as one of the first major Bilingual Departments in the CSU system. Since then it has graduated over 800 bilingual teachers, administrations, college professors, and educational leaders. The department at one time had a faculty of 18 tenure track members.
In response to the severe crisis in teacher preparation in California, the department was voted out of existence during the Fall of 2010 . As many as half of the existing faculty members were in favor of a re-organization of the College that would in the process eliminate the department. Few of these faculty were part of the group that established the department. The decision was made by a vote of the entire faculty of the College of Education – not only the faculty of the department. The vote was 65 to 19 to adopt a new organizational form which does not include a department of Bilingual/Multicultural Education. In general many faculty believe that “ we are all multicultural now, and such specifically focused departments are no longer necessary.”
This viewpoint was common in 1994 when the department was created, however deep divisions in the department faculty in 2008 made the department susceptible to elimination.
During the last decades the BMED department prepared thousand of new teachers and educational leaders who made bilingualism and multiculturalism a priority. The programs emphasized Spanish –English, Chinese and more recently Hmong bilingualism. Under the prior School of Education, many of our now graduates would have been screened out . With the strength of our own department we were able to recruit, educate, credential and help organize these students.
Students from the program were active in the campaigns against California propositions 187, 209, and 227, which effectively eliminated most bilingual education in the state.
Note the parallel here in the comments by Chicano Studies professor and author Rudy Acuña, " By and large educators were mute as bilingual programs were wiped out and university based teacher training programs specializing on Mexican Americans were eliminated. At teacher training institutions grade point average was favored over knowledge of the child’s background. Although Latinos comprised 75 percent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, student teachers were given minimal preparation on how to teach Latino students.
The dropout was one of the major reasons for the development of Chicano Studies in 1969" by Rodolfo Acuña. Here
On the termination of the department
I (Duane Campbell) was the founding chair of the department in 1994. I retired in 2008 and I have not been engaged in the internal discussions about the future of the department and its termination. As in many academic departments there are intense, highly personal conflicts between some members of the department leading a lack of unity of purpose in the face of the extreme budget crisis of the university system.
In 2010 36% of the California population is Latino, and 49 % of k-12 public school students are Latinos or descendents of Latinos. In 2010, 25% of the legislators are Latinos. Certainly these students came from somewhere. They too have a history
We can now observe that most of the minority faculty recruited in the 1970’s have retired. Less than half have been replaced.
Ethnic studies has prospered, but there has been little recognition for a Chicano history, a Chicano political science, etc. This generation of Anglo faculty no longer recognize a need to have faculty with these backgrounds.
Although the student populations has increased in diversity( see charts below), the faculty population has decreased diversity. A similar pattern is developing at other campuses. That is, those of us who stood on the shoulders of giants to create an open, diverse university are now losing what we gained. This development requires further analysis.
In 2010, the Single Subject course work designed in the new credential department ( post BMED) was essentially the same as the Single Subject course work in the early 1970's, plus one course in Introduction to Bilingual Education and English Language Learners. After 40 years of organizing in the College of Education to meet the immediate needs of Chicano/Latino and other diverse students, with a continuing drop out rate of near 50% for Latino students and Hmong students, among others, the College of Education and several members of the former BMED department decided to return to a revised version the dysfunctional curriculum of the 1970's. Adding some 4-8 Latino faculty to BMED, and several to Teacher Education, had the effect of allowing Latino faculty to vote on this issue. It did not effect the outcome of the vote.
This long march through the institutions has ended for the Bilingual /Multicultural faculty and students at CSU Sacramento.
On Sat, May 19,2012, the Bilingual/Multicultural Education Department at CSU-Sacramento graduated its final class. A movement that began in the Mexican American Education Project of 1969-1974 came to a close. See history here: https://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg/chicano-mexican-american-digital-history-project/mexican-american-education-project
I retired in 2008 and had little role to play in the decision to abandon this civil rights project. In the 15 year history of the department we graduated thousands of new bilingual teachers and educational leaders who, under the prior hegemonic system, would have been sorted out. These graduates have gone into teaching and schools and influenced thousands of students. Under the new system, they will again often be discarded. The drop out rate for Chicano students remains near 50%.
We know how to significantly lower the drop out rate- it requires skilled, committed teachers. Many of the teachers – not all- should be from the students’ own culture.
The students are still there. The students of California still need bilingual and multicultural teachers. Students who are descendents of Mexican and Chicano families now make up almost 48% of public school students.
There were state budget cuts, but a united faculty could have retained the department if they so chose. Instead, a new generation of faculty chose to abandon this institutional base that had been created by their predecessors.
While the elimination of the BMED department remains a serious loss, the best measure of the value of the department is to recognize the ongoing contributions of our graduates.There are fine teachers, administrators, and university faculty working every day to continue the contribution to social justice and Chicano empowerment. We assisted these organizers by preparing them and providing them with credentials needed to continue the struggle.
The termination of the BMED ended one of the important collective efforts to provide educational equity for Chicano/Latino students at Sac State. It ended one of the largest and most effective equity efforts in the CSU and in the north of the state and in so doing seriously impaired the College’s effort toward constructing a democratic society.
Change toward social justice almost always occurs as a collective effort, not an individual effort. Individual faculty remain in the College, but the collective effort has been terminated.
In August of 2012, California public schools are in crisis- and they are getting worse, particularly the schools serving low income students. This is a direct result of massive budget cuts imposed by the legislature and the governor in the last four years. Total per pupil expenditure is down by over $1,000 per student. The result- massive class size increases. Students are in often classes too large for learning. Supplementary services such as tutoring and art classes have been eliminated. Over 14,000 teachers have been dismissed, and thousands more face lay offs this fall.
Latino descent students now constitute 48% of the total k-12 school population. Schools and teachers promote either equality or they promote inequality. Schools, whether public or private, or university teacher preparation programs can teach and support democratic values or they reinforce authoritarian, anti democratic values and thus increase the hostile divisions in our society.
Update. A faculty member in the department has published a nuanced description of the process used to terminate the department. It is here.
William-White, L. (2012). Advocating for Multicultural Education and Social Justice in the Age of Economic Uncertainty, International Review of Qualitative Research. 5(2), 175-204.
An injury to one is an injury to all.
This post dedicated to the memory of Hugo Chacon and Dr. Tom Carter.
The BMED Department has hosted an annual conference for students, faculty and graduates. This is an important part of community outreach. Here are the keynote speakers from the conference.
BMED Multicultural Education Conferences: Keynote Speakers’ Timeline and Themes
(18th) Fall 2011 Dr. Maria de la Luz Reyes, Becoming Biliterate Against the Odds: A Cause for Celebration
(17th) Fall 2010 Dr. Eugene Garcia, Arizona Immigration Policy and its Impact on Education: Resisting the New [Anti] Social Movement
(16th) Fall 2009 Dr. Brian D. Schultz; Social Justice through Civic Education and Action
(15th) Spring 2009 Dr. Shawn Ginwright; Youth Rising—Radical Healing and Activism in the Post Civil Rights Era
(14th) Spring 2008 Dr. Francisco Reveles; Closing the Academic Achievement Gap: Building Networks to Success
(13th) Spring 2007 Dr. Sonia Nieto; Empowering Socially Responsible Multicultural Educators: An Examination of Instructional Policies and Practices
(12th) Spring 2006 Dr. Antonia Darder; Education Reform and Social Justice Issues: A Grassroots [Re]Examination of Race, Class, and Society
(11th) Spring 2005 Mr. Lee Mun Wah; Reflections on the Elections: Educating and Empowering Diverse Students through Social Justice Action
(10th) Spring 2004 Dr. Duane Campbell; We Will Find a Way or We Will Make One: The Civil Rights Movement in Education
(9th) Spring 2003 Dr. Christine Sleeter; Engaging in Social Action Inside the Accountability Movement
(8th) Spring 2002 Dr. Gustavo Fischman, Multiple Perspectives/Voices, Now--More Than Ever
(7th) Spring 2001 Dr. Geneva Gay; Transformative Education: Critical Issues for California’s Changing Schools
(6th) Spring 2000 Dr. Ronald Takaki; The Making of a Multicultural America: A Curriculum for the 21st Century
(5th) Spring 1999 Dr. Carlos Cortés; Beyond Language: Social and Cultural Factors in Schooling Language Minority Students
(4th) Spring 1998 Dr. Diane Cordero de Noriega; Dr. Shirley Thornton; Diversity in the Face of Adversity
(3rd) Spring 1997 Dr. Kenji Hakuta; Bilingual Education and Language Civil Rights
(2nd) Spring 1996 Dr. Duane Campbell; Preserving Democracy in Conservative Times
(1st) Spring 1995 Mr. Bert Corona; Lessons Learned from the Civil Rights Movement
California populations
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