"Administratively, there's an enormous difference. What does the presence of Hispanic people do to departments in English and Spanish? It's a different question than building a department around Hispanic people," Sommer says.

The Latino Studies Initiative, Sommer says, is working to "introduce the University to distinguished professors in a range of disciplines that engage in Latino studies."

Others say part of the difficulty in establishing how to study ethnicity is that the word itself is constantly evolving.

Evans says the discussion might be helped by a sharper definition.

"Ethnicity each day assumes a different face," he says. "I would like to see [ethnic studies]. I think the problem is that they are dealing with something here that is loosely defined and is being redefined almost every third day.

"You cannot take a term like ethnic studies and easily throw it about," Evans adds.

One issue is that many groups are redefining and subdividing. Evans gave the example of black student groups.