Sounds good.

"20th-Century American Theater."

Did I miss a word? "20th-Century American Ethnic Theater," right?

"International Conflicts in the Modern World."

Is this the right book?

Apparently, Dean of Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles defines ethnic studies broadly. Very broadly. "The study of race and ethnicity in the United States and worldwide," he calls it.

That's strange. I see only one other course here that even includes "Asian" in the title. Latinos? One. (The same class: "Asian and Hispanic Politics in the United States.")

Perhaps this is why students say they only count 25 ethnic studies courses.

The administration says with some justifiable pride that it has increased the number of scholars doing research in fields related to ethnic studies. There have been two additions per year since 1991.

But that doesn't mean so much when there are still only Manny, Moe and Jack courses to choose from.

I don't want to get picky. I'm sure many of the "ethnic studies" courses are good. Many of them are comparative, which is fine.

I just have two problems: 1) A lot of these courses deal with everywhere but the United States; and 2) When you're dealing with five or six ethnic groups in one class, you're not going to be getting at what I was talking about earlier: the complexity within each ethnic group.

You'll have one or two writers representing an ethnic literary population or one or two history books.

That's not very complex.

Science professors teach classes on particles smaller than atoms. Surely there is enough material to teach within one or two ethnic groups to fill up a course.