The Faculty Senate Curriculum Committee has sought graduate and professional student input on the following recommendations for a diversity component in degree programs. The diversity recommendations will be discussed at the next FSCC meeting, Friday 2 November 2007 at 10AM in the Roberts room on the second floor of Scholes Hall (The diversity discussion is listed toward the bottom of the agenda so it may not come up until closer to 11AM).
To: Faculty Senate Curriculum Committee
From: Subcommittee on Diversity
Re: Draft: Diversity Requirement Recommendation Revisions
Date: September 27, 2007
Recommendation: All undergraduate and graduate degrees programs will have a requirement af one three credit hour class that meets the university diversity guidelines. The course would be selected from a designated list of approved courses. The requirement would have to be fulfilled by degree completion.
Rationale: Curricula should reflect an approach to diversity that recognizes all forms including race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, physical and mentally challenged individuals and other underrepresented or marginalized groups in society.
The committee believes that we should support the teaching of diversity across the curriculum and that students will greatly benefit by selecting a course of their choice available throughout their academic experience.
Operational Process for Implementation:
1. The FSCC and Faculty Senate would initially develop and approve specific themes and outcomes that would serve as guidelines for courses deemed appropriate for this requirement. This would allow for a coherent set of themes and outcomes of the courses relative to diversity but allow for different disciplines to participate and express these themes through a variety of perspectives.
2. The criteria developed would be distributed to all departments through a designated point of origin: the Vice Provost’s Office, Registrar’s Office, and Office of Diversity etc.
3. Course syllabi should be developed or modified accordingly at the department level. They should explicitly address the designated themes and outcomes in order to be eligible and approved as courses that will fulfill the “diversity” requirement for graduation.
Examples of themes are: pluralism, social justice, communication skills, historical context & perspectives relative to marginalized groups.
Examples of outcomes might include:
* The student will demonstrate the ability to listen and respond to views different from ones own.
* The student will examine personal bias and its impact on the degree to which people are judgmental.
* The student will demonstrate the meaning of pluralism and give examples of its impact in society through economic, educational and social institutions.
* The student will relate the historical antecedents that influence or perpetuate inequities for marginalized groups.
* The student will analyze the historical context and its impact on the evolution and sustainability of a particular group.
* The student will compare and contrast similarities and differences between cultural and ethnic groups.
o The student will demonstrate the application of strategies for peace making and conflict resolution.
4. Departmentally approved syllabi will be forwarded to the Undergraduate, and or Graduate Committee, and FSCC for final approval.
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16 comments:
Moronic.
I am in favor of providing the opportunity for graduate/professional students to receive diversity training. I am not in favor of requiring graduate/professional students to have said training.
I can understand the university considering requiring a course of this nature for undergrads, as part of a core curriculum, irregardless of the merits of the discussion. An undergraduate degree across the US is acknowledged to have a core liberal arts portion to the education, in the interest of exposing undergraduate students to a broad range of education/life preparation. So, this may be a part of this core curriculum, or not, as may other courses/topics. Good discussion ensues.
Graduate/professional education has a much different focus; I am here to be trained/learn how to be a professional in my field. This covers a core set of courses in my discipline, and a number of elective courses in my discipline that further specialize my training/education. There are NO courses external to my discipline. A number of courses are offered and promoted around campus that relate to the activities I may do professionally: TARC teaching seminars, technical writing summer classes, etc. However, these are not viewed by my department or professionally across the country as essentially required for my training, and they (nor a diversity/discrimination course) should not be required.
A further issue comes with quality of the course. Students in my department (Physics & Astronomy) do not have a particularly strong liberal arts background, and will not be able to take a graduate level course discussing these issues, such as those offered in the College of Education. I do not want to be required to take an undergraduate, or undergraduate level class on this topic, nor do other students in my department; if we had, we would have taken it in undergrad. It strikes me as bad policy to require an extremely uneven education such as this across disciplines.
Venturing out from my personal experience, many of the students in my department are international. As stated at previous council meetings by international students, international students inherently understand this issue while US students do not. So, why require international students to take the class? By requiring a course, are we unfairly targeting this sort of course towards those perceived to be on the power end of the issue, not the powerless? How do you tell, without inherently discriminating?
A minor point: a number of departments in the College of Arts and Sciences already offer elective courses covering various aspects of this topic. I envision duplication of courses offered and/or uneven training across campus, if these departmental courses are considered substitutes, were this requirement to be enacted.
A minor point: for professional students, whose tuition is significantly higher than graduate students, adding even a one credit class is very expensive. I don't support making professional students pay $500 to take an additional one credit course beyond their curriculum requirements. Especially for those professional students who were undergrads at UNM (a good number of folks at the School of Law and Anderson), they may be/have been required to take this training already. Many graduate students who have assistantships may have a one credit course ($160) covered by their assistantships, but think about the financial implications for those who do not have tuition coverage.
Comments below.
Email on the GPSA-L list serv:
>Greetings fellow GPSA members:
>
>I would like to echo Lucy on this point, and add that backing a required course for graduate students is a powerful way to show the University (administrators as well as undergraduates), that we take this issue seriously. Ideally, such a course would provide a specific space (I would argue badly needed) where graduate students could actively engage in critical discussions about race, racism, and white privilege, aimed at questioning (and possibly beginning to dismantle) systems of privilege (those based on race, (hetero)sexual identity or orientation, sex/gender, national origin, class, etc.). If done in a way that reflects full commitment to
>engaging with the issues listed above, incorporating such a course into UNM's curriculum would only benefit us as grad/professional students, as well as the University as a whole. Specifics about such a course/various "approved" courses, undoubtedly, become more complicated, and need to be discussed at length.
See above; I am not in favor of requiring a course of this nature.
>
>I support such an addition to UNM's required courses for ALL undergraduate and graduate/professional students for the following reasons:
>
>One, when we say we support diversity training and education at this university, we should be prepared to participate in it ourselves.
>
Yes, people should be encouraged/self-motivated to take such training, but we should not require people to take it.
>Two, no person or persons, regardless of identity, group membership, or personal exposure to diversity, should be assumed "culturally competent," or "naturally" competent (and therefore exempt from training) with regard to issues of diversity. There are always divergent positions to be considered.
>
What does the term competent mean in this context? Aware of diversity/discrimination issues? How aware? Which topics? How do you judge someone's competency?
I refute the assumption and implication that I, or any other graduate/professional student with a university degree, is incompetent or unaware of these issues. We are not 18 year old undergraduates. This assumption speaks from a "If you're not actively addressing the issue, you're part of the problem" platform that inherently states/implies that only those actively working against discrimination are not discriminatory. You cannot tell.
>Three, related to number one, having these conversations and moving towards changing a campus climate takes time (and effort). I would hope that we could agree to put in some time here -- I think it could be rather exciting.
>
Yes, let's put in some time. Evenings, Saturdays and Sundays please, because I commute daily to work on my dissertation. Ditto for graduate students with full time jobs, families or other obligations who can barely find time for the required curriculum. This is more of an issue for professional/graduate students than undergrads, demographically.
>I do not intend any disrespect, and hope that my comments are not taken this way. My graduate program, like all programs, is grueling, packed, extremely stressful, and expensive, so I sympathize with students who can not imaging adding another requirement. However, I feel that this issue is critical, and its treatment is long overdue.
>
I agree with this statement, but view that the topic should be addressed voluntarily, not mandatorily.
I cannot speak for the physical sciences on this issue, but I do feel that I have been at UNM long enough to have a sense of the social sciences and humanities beyond my own department. The assumption that graduate students are not aware of the importance of diversity is insulting. Beyond that, at least in my own department (C&J), diversity has been a topic in EVERY COURSE that I have taken. Every last one. We have enough repetitive courses that serve only to allow a select few individuals to get over their own guilty privilege and sleep at night. I absolutely will not support adding another one.
I am an international student keenly interested in issues of diversity and equity. I had been talking with some progressive East Indian activists on campus and outside and we felt that many of us came from countries where diversity education was very poor or absent. We found that several work visa holders in this country abused female family members, and seniors, in spite of having high quality graduate education and working in high profile jobs. They also indulged in practices like bringing poor countrypeople into their homes to serve as virtual domestic servants. We also found that female family members who are being abused, also have high quality graduate education but are unable to assert themselves and continue to live in abusive relationships.
We felt that if students could get education in this very important topic, prior to either getting a work visa or going back to their home country, several people would be able to assert themselves in marraiges or be more cautious against abusive treatments. This would have direct impact on the number of domestic violence cases. We were in fact going to lobby professors in different areas, including science and technology. However, the diversity sub committee was an easier route. And I requested the issue to be considered by the faculty.
At the same time, I came in contact with a professor who noted certain trends within her department and spoke out for a diversity course requirement. Many others I spoke to also favored a diversity requirement. I have been told that diversity courses were manadated in UCLA for the past 20 years and that UNM is, in some ways, behind times with regards to the diversity question.
Should it be mandatory? In a way yes. Why? because I know of wonderful lawyers who are culturally incompetent, good doctors who have told me the most racist things, brilliant engineers who have been downright sexist. These people have made me lose faith in their otherwise competent understanding of laws/medicine/engineering skills. Many of the fields, unfortunately, only provide technical skills but not sufficient people skills and cultural competence.
Even, in those fields which provide a forum like critical analysis of social systems and human dilemnas, I have found deeply embedded racism, sexism, and homophobia. In fact it was not until I took an anti-racism workshop, did I realize how much I myself had not understood, been biased and homophobic. It awakened me to new understandings and understandings of my own privelege of which I have plenty.
How can it be implemented-- the discussion I had with the faculty members was something like this: we can offer a series of courses across several disciplines which can qualify as diversity courses. The science and technology courses can have their own version of diversity courses. There are several professors on campus who teach on the intersection of technology, science, sustainability, race, gender, and queerness theory. It is true they have met a lot of opposition in crosslisting courses with science and technology departments. But this can be remedied.
Further, we could perhaps leave it to the department to decide if they would like to convert one of their core courses as diversity course or electives as one.
I know diversity course may seem as something punitive to some of us. But this is important to make our world a safer place and a more equitable place.
I respectfully ask you to support the diversity course requirement. Thanks for taking the time to read through this.
Bhavana
Whoever feels they need this ridiculous course should go take it and pay money out of their own pocket for it.
Else they should have the choice of screwing up in life and breaking a law or two and getting sued or jailed for it.
Thank you very much.
This recommendation is akin to a recommendation that because a few of us that feel that every person in the world should be able to sort in nlogn time, we would like an algorithms course to be mandatory for all you folk.
Each department should mind and conduct its own business.
Engineering or medical schools don't guarantee politically correct graduates of their programs. They just produce good engineers and doctors. Political correctness, human empathy, spirituality, religion, .. and all other social skills are things that a person has all the opportunity in their life to pursue and gain expertise in. But outside their academic department.
Would anyone argue that we do not need graduate and professional students that have an understanding of how they fit in the world around them?
I am in a "progressive" department on campus (Community & Regional Planning) and issues of diversity are often 'glossed' over because we all know it. And yet the ways students work with each other, with faculty and the community are often problematic and entrenched in systems of oppression.
I need to "borrow" from Dr. Maria Williams, I too want to "colonize education" and restructure a system that does not in fact encourage us to be who we are or reflect and serve the communities we come from but instead assimilate into an academic structure.
I appreciate those who have thoughtfully responded. I work at UNM to pay for school and have a limited amount of hours that are paid for though my assistantship. But I want to resist us to always commodify every aspect of our education.
On the other hand, I know we cannot also 'force' anyone to be educated.
I will go a step further to say that we need a required class in 'undoing colonization' but I don't want to force people because I also don't want the attitude of people not wanting to "be there."
Can I just say one last thing? As a queer, Chicano, working class, child of immigrant (grandparents), feminist and MANY OTHER IDENTITIES -- if folks choose to come to a 'diverse campus' like UNM shouldn't we all be willing to be part of different structure and process about diversity that may include one class (or more) about undoing systems of oppression?
By the way, I am not registering with Blogger or google but I don't have a problem with folks knowing that this is Christopher Ramirez, MCRP, cramire4@unm.edu.
I request everybody to please identify yourself on this blog. It is ridiculous that some people should make obnoxious comments under anonymous or pseudonyms. Let us come out in the open and own our comments.
Bhavana
OMG.....
Big brother is watching....
Not only are you required to attend their "diversity" training but now you must identify yourself....on a blog..... be afraid people be very afraid....
On a more serious note, get off your high horse.....where do you get off telling people that they must identify themselves...
What about having a slightly different forum for diversity training? Instead of a required class, graduate students could be required to attend a lecture series sponsored (and paid for) by UNM that addresses diversity issues. This could be something grad students could attend weekly (with a sign in so that attendance could be checked) or could be something that departments could set a certain number of sessions their students would have to attend (say 5 lectures per semester in the first year of grad school). This would be a valuable way to handle the issue of diversity as guest lectures could be delivered from various positions as apposed to just having a single instructor for your departments' diversity class.
Kari Schleher
PhD Candidate, Anthropology Dept.
Nothing that is "required" is acceptable. The whole point about academic freedom is lost.
This sorta course has a place in freakin' primary school.Not grad school. (ok maybe for undergrads.. since I dont have to worry about that now and im not an educationalist I dont care).
There is a bigger and more mandatory "Diversity course" out there. Its called "life". So, go get one.
Please, allow me the freedom to be a probable hypocrite, a bigot, a racist, or any other obnoxious kind of "____ist" if I choose to be so. I am aware of the risks.
I wish to take my risks in my life and be less "culturally and diversity educated" than all you wise folk out there. I just want to be a computer scientist and solve some of the world's computing problems. I didn't come here to be told how to behave and interact with other folk.
If in the need I need to
communicate with "real" people, I shall hire myself someone in the field who is "diversity" educated and save my nerdy ass from being sued.
Thank you.
Reiterating my first comment. This is a stupid recommendation.
Roshan
Grad,CS
1. If you're in grad school, you don't have a thought process that settles on things like race, religion and creed, it focuses on the quality of your performance and the quantity of your work -- your success is what you are judged on. (As a FEMALE of COLOR, I have never experienced anything politically incorrect because I am judged on the basis of my abilities and my work and I have made sure of it.)
--its called academia ... ever heard of it? Success = papers published.
2. If you are in grad school, you have already come across enough diversity and experience to know how to treat people that you like kindly, and people that you don't like unkindly -- DUH! By the way ... if someone is treating you un-diversity-like what the f*ck are you doing still standing there? get back to work!! better yet, get a life!!
3. If you are in grad school, you want to work, get your degree and get a real job. Why waste precious time on a course that will teach us something we already know?
4. If you are in grad school you already know whos ass to kiss, how much ass to kiss and when to kiss it. So you know how to play nice when you want something. Diversity class, my ass.
5. i don't know what prompted the necessity for this idiocy but the idea is that those of us that have to run experiments in "real" science fields have to take an ethics class. Basically, the people that came up with this subcommittee, etc, should just sit back and take an ethics class and then realize that a diversity class is unethical torture of graduate students.
6. I hope that this whole subcomittee formation and hearings etc, isn't someones social science thesis because .... um... very very very uneducated if you ask me.
On 10/31/07, High Desert Linguistics Society hdls@unm.edu wrote:
...which appears to make the required course recommendation. Granted in a DRAFT form
but it appears to be a product of Max's and the sub-committee's work and
discussions on the issue...
To clarify:
I did not compose, or bestow official GPSA approval to, the FSCC's diversity document. Faculty were already in the process of drafting such a plan when I joined the committee this year. I simply asked for graduate and professional students to be able to participate, then sent out invitations to do so. As I mentioned, the response was near nil until this week. When I did speak as a representative of the GPSA, I tried to express concerns from multiple sides of the issue--not only because I am personally schizophrenic on the issue, but, more importantly, because the two people that communicated to me about it held divergent perspectives.
The diversity policy is nowhere near finalized. So you--the GPSA in all its...diversity--still have ample chance to add input. The discussion on the GPSA blog ( www.unmgpsa.blogspot.com) is one place to flesh out views. You may also speak at the FSCC meeting on Friday 2 November 2007 at 10AM in Scholes Hall, second floor, Roberts room.
I possess no parliamentarian expertise on the legislation process of the Faculty Senate, but I believe that the diversity recommendation will have to pass through not only the Curriculum Committee, but also the Graduate Committee, if not other committees as well, before arriving before the Faculty Senate. So you can articulate your arguments at the committee meetings, at the full Faculty Senate meetings, as well as at the Regent's meetings. The GPSA can pass a resolution on the issue, too.
My point is that this issue is not settled. No individual has hijacked the process in the name of the entire student body. No fast ones have been pulled--unless it was so fast as to escape my dim wits. Please understand that there still exists much opportunity to influence policy.
Sincerely,
Max Fitzpatrick
Instead of diversity training, which I agree, it belongs in grade school, how about a much needed grammar course. It appears that all these upset engineers, astrophysicists, and anthropologists need basic grammar skills which are oddly enough, also supposed to be taught in grade school.
Note: irregardless is NOT a word.
Note: Whos is NOT a word (it would either be whose or who's depending on the context).
-A Mexican who not only lives diversity, but also "whose" native language is NOT English.
Say what, dude? I mean c'mon biznatches, this ain't cool, nom'saying?
Dudes be making me be diverse, I's about to say whazzaup, for real, foo!
Stay out my biznatch! Peace!
DomZell
I believe very strongly that this policy should NOT be enacted. I echo the sentiments of previous bloggers that this is a wonderful idea to add to the undergraduate program (if there is no such requirement already in place), but as graduate students we are here to focus on our particular area of study. This is not the function of graduate school, and should not be forced upon graduate students.
I think it's pertinant to point out that the more educated a people group is, the less likely it is that individuals from that group will be ignorant of diversity and ethnic issues. This is clearly not the case for every individual, however the majority should not be subjected to the extra time, work, and expenses associated with instituting this program. As has also been stated already, I think most students would enter the class with an attitude of frustration and therefore not be receptive to the class's message.
I do not mean this in a hostile way, nor do I mean to offend. But I feel that it is wrong and unnecessary to require this of graduate students.
Jessica Taylor
Masters of Music student
Oh cruel world!
A mandatory course about diversity, community, and respect for graduate students?
Such horrible iniquity I have never heard of in this lifetime of toil and suffering! Perhaps I should protest by refusing to aknowledge the existence of institutional racism in our mist?
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