It’s quite remarkable to note that over 20 years later, our curriculum still lacks any “diversity” requirement, especially when one considers how many times such a requirement has been demanded and come up in conversations around the curriculum. While Connections requires a first year seminar, two semesters of language, and several ambiguous “modes of inquiry,” there is no requirement for students to explicitly study power, oppression, racism etc. Although many of the already established “pathways” do provide courses that engage with these issues through a variety of disciplinary lenses, students are ultimately able to choose which issues they wish to engage with, and faculty are able to choose which issues should even be on the table for engagement. Despite national and local demands for a curriculum that emphasizes the study of power and difference for all, the College has consistently refused to necessitate this sort of critical learning as a required part of the Connecticut College education.
In the article above, former Professor of Mathematics Walter Brady stated, “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.” Such a statement assumes that “diversity” constitutes a moral, ethical, and political sort of learning, but whitewashed curricula do not have any morals, ethics, or politics to them, and are simply “neutral,” “normal,” and “intellectual.” “Diversity” and the pursuit of social justice issues more broadly are in themselves deeply intellectual goals. Teaching is an inherently political act, and an education is a politicizing undertaking; although educators should incorporate multiple perspectives and viewpoints within their teaching, educators still decide what issues are even to be debated, which perspectives are to be included in a short semester, and which voices are to be concealed.
One could argue that we have come a long way from where we were as a college in 1995. While this may be true in some ways, there is a remarkable continuity between our new “revolutionary” curriculum, Connections, and the old curriculum that assumed that “diversity” was a non-intellectual, moral/ethical/political agenda.
Under Connections, even though students are supposed to develop “integrated” thematic inquiry, no “themes” are privileged or marked as more important than other themes and there is no clear definition of “theme” to begin with. Under this scheme, “Entrepreneurship” is just as crucial of a “theme” for Conn students to study as “City Schools,” and students may pick whichever one sounds more important to them. So, if not developing important social competencies across the board, what is Connections really doing? If we look closely, we see that the main thing Connections equips students with is a set of apolitical but (we assume) “intellectual” skills that may then be applied in any nameable occupational context.
We hope to continue to excavate the archives, thinking about how exactly the demand for the diversity requirement has been silenced in the history of the College, how many times, and under what justifications, as we bear witness to Connections unfolding. •
