History
The Borderlands and Ethnic Studies (BEST) Department was formed at NMSU after a long history of activism by students, faculty, and community members. Conversations about Ethnic Studies started at NMSU in the late 1960s along with a national movement in Universities across the United States.
Courses
Our courses and programs invite students to learn more deeply about themselves, their communities, their lived environment and more complete and accurate histories of local and global peoples and places. BEST courses offer theoretical and applied ways to understand and navigate a complex and changing world steeped in constructs of race, gender, class, sexual orientation, among others.
This relational, applied program is comprised of courses based in Borderlands identities and theories that refer to multiple and intersecting types of Borderlands—physical, geopolitical, personal, and societal.
BEST faculty offer courses in the following fields: Borderlands and Ethnic Studies (BEST), Chicana/o Studies (CCST), Native American Studies (NATV), Palestine Studies, and we collaborate with Colleagues in Africana Studies (AFST) with in the School of Teacher Preparation, Administration, and Leadership (TPAL) in the College of Health, Education, and Social Transformation (HEST).
Student-Centered Commitment
This beautiful painting above, titled “Sanctioned Knowledge” was NMSU alumna, Haley Stewart's, final project for BEST 510: Foundations in Borderlands and Ethnic Studies. Ms. Stewart describes the painting as depicting the difference between and relationship between official/dominant and unofficial/decolonial knowledges. One set of knowledge is readily available, while the other set of knowledge/s are more vibrant and pluralistic… but less readily available and in many cases silenced and marginalized. Our department’s faculty are committed, in partnership with community, to making those silenced knowledges available to all our learners.
Our students/learners are our primary focus in Borderlands and Ethnic Studies as we build toward a more holistic way of learning, engaging, and transforming the world we live in toward equity, healing, and justice.
Questions?
Please contact Dr.Dulcinea to discuss classes and curriculum.
