Native Studies

California State University San Marcos

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Presentation

Earning this broadly interdisciplinary minor reflects an awareness of the indigenous heritage as well as the issues which contemporary native communities and peoples confront. Students will focus on native peoples in the United States and Mexico but will have opportunities to consider the experience of native peoples in a global context. The native studies minor demands a range of knowledge focused in four areas: indigenous cultures, history, and the social and environmental contexts of native life. It makes use of the strengths of university faculty members in anthropology, communication, history, music, visual arts, biology, and economics.

The minor prepares students who expect to work with native communities to understand those communities in a broad cultural, historical, social, and environmental context. Students who earn the minor should have the particular knowledge and sensitivity necessary to work successfully as educators, administrators of businesses and tribal and other governmental bodies, and members of other professions serving native communities.

Eighteen reservations are located all or in part in San Diego County, and the California and urban American Indian population is upwards of thirty thousand (not including members of indigenous communities based in Mexico). Much of that population is in the area served by the university. This minor serves as an essential link between the university and the diverse Indian communities within its area of responsibility; a central goal of the program is to strengthen relationships between the university and these communities.

Requirements for a Native Studies Minor
 

Completion of the minor requires twenty-one units of credit, fifteen of which must be upper-division courses, and twelve of which must be completed at CSUSM. Courses must be completed with a grade of C or better to count toward the minor.

One course must be an internship (NATV 498 or a relevant internship in any discipline), approved by the native studies coordinator, which brings the student into direct contact with a native community.

In addition, at least one course must be chosen from each of the four areas below, plus two electives taken from any of the areas below. With consent of the program coordinator, as many as six units of Independent Study (NATV 390 or a relevant independent study in any discipline) may be counted toward the Minor.

I. History: Courses in this area should provide a knowledge of the broad issues and problems of native history as well as an understanding of the specific periods discussed.

HIST 337 3 
HIST 338 3 
HIST 300J 3 

II. Culture: Courses in the culture area should expose the student to the complexity and diversity of native cultures and encourage further exploration and participation.

ANTH 302 3 
ANTH 325 3 
MUSC 322 3 
MUSC 390 3 
MUSC 422 3 

III. Social Context: Courses in this area should help students understand the multicultural character of societies in which native people live, the place of native peoples within those societies, and the meaning of native identity in a multicultural context.

ANTH 200 3 
COMM 330 3 
HIST 356 3 

IV. Environmental Context: Courses in this area are concerned with resource development, urbanization, and other aspects of environmental change, and should help students understand how such change affects native communities.

ANTH 370 3 
BIOL 338 3 
BIOL 339 3 
ECON 325 3 

Additional Courses

NATV 390 3 
NATV 498 3 
  
Total Units: 21 

COURSES:

NATV 390 Independent Study in Native Themes. Allows students to explore historical, cultural, social, and environmental questions significant to native communities under the supervision of a faculty member in the appropriate discipline.

NATV 498 Internship in a Native Community. This course may be considered the capstone of the Native Studies minor, which is designed to equip students for service to native communities. Students will be expected to provide a minimum of one hundred hours of faculty-monitored service with institutions serving reservation or urban native communities, such as (but not limited to) schools, libraries, clinics, urban service centers, youth programs, and study projects supervised by native entities (such as environmental studies).