American Studies Program

The American Studies Program offers an interdisciplinary engagement with what America means in the United States and in a global context. Faculty encourage students to look at the meaning and reality of the evolving United States as a question still in need of answering and as an experiment still in process, not as a dream fully realized. We use multiple perspectives and methodologies and require that students synthesize knowledge in ways that develop the skills needed for rigorous, complex analysis.

The American Studies Program Faculty at Cornell call on the University to reinstate all students suspended for alleged participation in the Arts Quad protest. These students were arbitrarily targeted by the administration. The conditions imposed upon the students can only be described as an abuse of power and have a disproportionate impact on international students. The administration has treated these students as pawns to be played rather than as students and members of our community for whom they have a duty of care. In the case of graduate student workers, the suspensions, as well as the broader interim expressive policy, are changes to working conditions that under federal law must be subject to bargaining. The suspension of these students is a threat to shared governance at Cornell and a violation of the principles of the University and the American Studies Program.