[2] It received a $1 million grant from the Peggy and Jack Baskin Foundation in 2017, which named distinguished professor Bettina Aptheker the Presidential Chair of the endowment.
In the early 1980s Bettina Aptheker, the leader of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and civil rights activist, became one of its first full-time faculty.
Before and during this time, she authored This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color and Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza.
[7] Other notable faculty include Karen Barad,[8] B. Ruby Rich,[9] Marcia Ochoa,[10] Shelly Grabe[11] and Gina Dent.
[12] In addition, notable scholars such as bell hooks, Lisa Lowe, Sandy Stone, and Caren Kaplan attended lectures at the department in the 1980s while graduate students.