Small turnout debate merits of proposal for mandatory Human Difference and Diversity requirement in General Education
Editor’s Note: The piece above was published in the March 1st, 1994 publication of The College Voice. While the majority of the March issue is dominated by a peculiar series of stories discussing a campus arsonist, the piece appears as a feature article near the back of the issue. Written by contributing writer Jennifer LeVan, the article details the controversies surrounding the creation of a possible new general education curriculum and the potential addition of a “diversity and human differences” course requirement.
Despite poor student and faculty turnout the second subcommittee of the Educational Planning Committee, focused on the creation of a human difference and diversity requirement in the curriculum, held a series of open meetings last week to garner input from the community on the proposed human difference and diversity requirement.
A handful of students and faculty members discussed goals and options for human difference and diversity which will eventually be ratified by the faculty, according to Thomas Ammirati, EPC member and associate professor of physics. Ammirati attributed the small turn-out to weather conditions and confusions created by the fire in the College Center.
“We will be presenting to the faculty at the faculty meeting next week a draft report on what we’ve done so far,” Ammirati said.
Ammirati said a list of goals and options for the difference and diversity requirement was sent to the faculty last week, and attributed the meetings’ poor attendance to adverse weather conditions.
Camille Hanlon, EPC member and professor of child development said the proposed human difference and diversity requirement is an expansions of the previously proposed multicultural requirement. Disabilities and gender issues would also be topics within the expanded requirement, Hanlon said.
Several faculty members debated the problem of setting goals for the teaching of difference and diversity within the curriculum.
Walter Brady, associate professor of mathematics said the views of difference and other cultures in a required course should not steer the student’s emotional and moral perception of that culture towards that which the college community deems appropriate and representative of their goals.
“I maintain that when we think about the curriculum, when we think about the purpose of the college, a lot of people have different views on its purpose and goals. I think a lot of people think one of the goals of the college is promoting diversity. The only goals it should have are intellectual goals, not moral, ethical or political goals,” Brady said.
In response to Brady’s argument, Ammirati cited the fact that many institutions are now requiring diversity requirements, such as Temple University’s Racism 101.
However, Ammirati also questioned the inculcation of certain values into the curriculum.
“What do you do with the perceptions on the part of some [people]…how do we put perceptions into the curriculum without pushing certain values?” Ammirati said.
Offering a theoretical solution, Brady said, “We must separate the intellectual from the ethical attitude. The only attitude you are trying to change in a course is an intellectual attitude.”
Stating that sometimes ethical attitudes are changed automatically, Brady found the difference and diversity issue analogous to the Connecticut College honor code. “I don’t see the purpose of the honor code to teach people to be honest, it just may do that involuntarily, as these courses may [change ethical and moral attitude involuntarily.]”
Other faculty members viewed the difference and diversity requirement not as influence beliefs, but better preparing students to make informed ethical choices.
Hanlon said, “There is a line of distinction about what the liberal arts do…[O]ne is that a liberal arts education makes a person a moral person in a liberal sense…[T]he second is that it gives students the information and skills they need to imagine and achieve things, in other words, to enhance their range of choices.”
Connie Dowell, EPC member and college librarian, referred to world religious studies s an applicable parallel. “The diversity requirement might be the same thing…we don’t teach students to be religious.”
Judith Kirmmse, executive assistant to the president, and affirmative action officer, said as students analyze and gain abstract views of other cultures, in turn they might view and accept human beings from a more holistic point of view. “The world may be moving in a more holistic direction,” Kirmmse said.
On the other hand, Brady said, “It would be a tragedy if the direction of humanity is to muddle all these aspects together again.”
Theresa Ammirati, director of the writing center, stressed the distinction between learning and promulgating information.
“It seems to me we have to give students the rhetorical skills to choose between two agendas, bad or good, we just have to hope that once they’ve been exposed, they’ll choose the agenda for good,” Ammirati said.
She continued, however, “I really am wearing of those who preach values in the curriculum. On the one hand one has to be very careful about teaching values, on the other hand, one has to be wary of teaching a disembodied intellectualism.”
Most faculty members agreed that the focus of the human diversity and difference requirement should be contemporary issues.
In two weeks, the subcommittee will hold more open meetings dealing with the science and math issue, and the skills portion of the curriculum. •
