Diversity course requirement remains stalled in Faculty Council committee
After six years, officials are optimistic the course will become reality.
Published Oct. 15, 2010
This is the third and final part of a three-part series on the diversity general education course requirement.
After two white students scattered cotton balls on the front lawn of the Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center in spring 2010, students, faculty and the Columbia community called into question the progress MU has made on diversity issues.
In the weeks following the incident, town hall meetings and forums, held by the Legion of Black Collegians and Chancellor's Diversity Initiative, amplified sentiments about a need for better and more effective diversity education and inclusion on campus.
But since 2004, the issue of creating a diversity course requirement has stalled.
Administrators point to a variety of hurdles that have slowed the requirement's progress, but six years after a task force recommendation and student backing, a requirement has yet to be finalized.
Former Four Front Co-Chairwoman Jackie Cook-Eberle, now Jackie Gold, was part of the course requirement effort in 2004, which laid the groundwork for the current proposal.
Working with Multicultural Center Assistant Director Pablo Mendoza, professors and Initiative Office Director Noor Azizan-Gardner, Cook-Eberle and other students created a model course for MU, but one was never adopted.
Cook-Eberle said people were supportive of the idea of a diversity course.
"No one was pushing back on the fact that we need diversity education around the school," she said.
But by 2006, after Cook-Eberle's graduation and the expiration of a task force deadline to review a diversity course, no such proposal was officially sent forward.
"I, frankly, have thought since the time I was in LBC 40 years ago that there needed to be a diversity requirement in the curriculum," Deputy Chancellor Mike Middleton said. "I think it's important that all students develop some awareness of issues related to people of different backgrounds, different experiences, different cultures and get some academic grounding in the issues surrounding that social interaction."
Slow change
Under the heading of a general education review, the first task on a list of 12 was the inclusion of a diversity course requirement.
"I think it's more important that we understand there are some basic values and basic knowledges that we want all students exposed to," Middleton said.
Faculty Council Chairwoman Leona Rubin said a diversity course requirement proposal, as well as the general education review, has been submitted to the Academic Affairs Committee.
Charged with reviewing the entire general education architecture proposal, the Academic Affairs Committee will present its recommendation to Faculty Council when the review is complete, Rubin said.
"There have been past efforts to do this that have failed, and we don't want to simply reproduce failed past efforts," Chief Diversity Officer Roger Worthington said. "We want to do something that is going to be successful, so we have been very systematic and methodical to ensure that we are really going to make this happen."
Under the general education review, the originally proposed diversity course requirement is similar to the writing intensive requirement already in place, Worthington said. Classes that qualify as diversity courses would fulfill the diversity requirement and count toward a student's major requirements, meaning the diversity course adds no additional credit hours to students' degree requirements.
"I'm hopeful (the diversity course requirement) happens in the wisdom of developing a mechanism that ensures that every student on this campus gets some academic grounding in these cultural diversity issues," Middleton said.
"It takes time"
In 1966, Middleton helped found the Legion of Black Collegians and presented a list of 10 demands to the chancellor, he said. None had been met by the time he graduated from the School of Law in 1971, and no progress was made in the following years, either.
"When I came back in 1985 as a law professor, many of those demands had not been met," he said. "Here we are in 2010, and we've received another list of demands, and many of them have been met."
Middleton explained his frustration as a passionate student when administrators said it took time to accomplish things.
"'It takes time,' they said, and that is not a satisfactory answer when you are passionate about what are you are trying to accomplish," Middleton said. "But the fact of the matter is, it does take time, and I think we have got to accept that reality and be diligent."
Although change has been slow, progress has been made to advance the diversity climate on campus, Worthington said. He said students' limited time on campus is an obstacle to showing consistent progress on complex issues like diversity.
"Because students are here for only a relatively short period of time, compared to faculty and staff and administrators, slow change seems like no change," he said.
Cook-Eberle, who has yet to see the work she did as a student manifested in university policy, said the changing face of the student body is part of a bigger issue of social reform on college campuses.
"There's only so much you can accomplish in four years, and ultimately there's going to be other leaders that take those issues on," she said.
In the long run, Middleton said, students who have worked on the diversity requirement and graduated without seeing its implementation should still take pride in their work and recognize the benefit of the requirement for future students.
"They should be proud and satisfied that they were able to be a part of that change," he said.
Not done yet
After review by a Faculty Council task force, the proposed general education review now sits within the Academic Affairs Committee of Faculty Council. In the coming months, Faculty Council will review the proposal before the entire general education review is voted on by the entire faculty.
But because of the nature of the proposal, if the general education review is not wholly approved by the faculty, no part of the proposal, including the diversity requirement, will be implemented.
For many students, such as former Four Front Co-Chairwoman ChaToyya Sewell, this means they will leave MU without ever seeing the implementation of a requirement.
Sewell, who worked with other students, the Chancellor's Diversity Initiative and the Chancellor's Office to create a possible requirement, said there were complications to get the requirement done quickly, but an official proposal should not have taken this long.
"At this point, to be honest, I think it will still be years from now," Sewell said. "I think it's going to take a long time."