Berkeley offers graduate and undergraduate degrees in ethnic, Asian-American, Chicano and Native American studies. African-American studies is a separate department. The ethnic studies major is a combination of at least three ethnic focuses.

"It makes people aware of who they are and who other people are," said Elizabeth M. Megino, an academic advisor in the Berkeley ethnic studies department. "It's important that people know about other cultures so they can get along with them."

Berkeley also has an ethnic studies graduation requirement for all students: a half--year course focusing on at least three cultures.

Stanford University offers an American studies major, which offers classes that focus on issues of ethnicity. Councils on the study of Mexicans in the U.S., Asian Americans and Native Americans help to inform students about cross-listed courses in other departments.

For Harvard, Sorensen says he sees a number of possible ways to further institutionalize ethnic studies. One, he says, is an ethnic studies department. Another is a committee--along the lines of Social Studies--that would oversee degrees in ethnic studies.

A third, he says, is a certificate, like the certificate in Latin American studies students currently can receive if they fulfill certain requirements.

Another possibility which some students have raised--although Sorenson does not--is a range of ethnic-specific departments.

But Harvard professors disagree about which program would best suit the University--and many doubt that such a program is necessary at all.

Multiple departments, says Sefaris Professor of Modern Greek Studies Margaret B. Alexiou, carry the threat of academic fragmentation.

"I think it's very dangerous to put small subjects like my own into...little ghettoes, as it were," Alexiou says.

"We must be careful not to fragment the institution into a number of very small departments," agrees Knowles. "I think that's extravagant administratively and it doesn't encourage intellectual inter-change."

Some professors say that even one department focusing on ethnic studies is not necessary here.

Associate Professor of Sociology Mary C. Waters suggests that the social studies and sociology concentrations already provide the opportunity to study different aspects of ethnicity.

"If a student wants to look at this from an interdisciplinary perspective," Waters says, there are "very natural places to concentrate and then go far afield and study ethnicity as your subject."

Professor of English Marjorie Garber's objection to an ethnic studies department is mainly pragmatic.