Phuong plans to meet with several different student groups in order to develop a cohesive plan for the future of ethnic studies.

"I want to stress that there's going to be a push again for an ethnic studies concentration or at least the incorporation of more classes," he said. "Ethnic studies is something that's coming back."

Sanchez, who also lobbied for ethnic studies awareness during his years as a Harvard undergraduate, recommended that interested students direct their appeals to specific faculty members and spend their summers contacting other scholars in the field.

Academic research in the area of ethnic studies has made great strides in the past thirty years, Sanchez said, but Harvard just has not been part of the game.

Sam L. Sternin '01, who has been involved in past ethnic studies efforts, said the main problem centers around Harvard's lack of respect for ethnic studies as an academic discipline.

"Harvard intellectually seems closed with regard to ethnic studies," he said. "They see it as just a passing phase. If that's the attitude, then clearly it's going to take a long time to change."

Sanchez said this attitude is causing Harvard to fall farther and farther behind other institutions and the field of ethnic studies is not a temporary fad.

"The same thing was said about studying the United States at the end of the nineteenth century," he said. "At that time there were people at Harvard who said we shouldn't study American literature. Given what's happening everywhere else, [ethnic studies] isn't a passing thing."