Universities Work to Make Diversity Core

Columbia's Core Curriculum routinely comes under attack from those who'd like it to include non-Western works as well as a broad range of cultural perspectives.

But even universities without such a classical course load have their issues with introducing diversity into the classroom.

Partially as a result of national trends and perhaps under pressure from student groups, departments like ethnic studies have cropped up across the country in recent decades. The struggle on Ivy League campuses continues as students push for books from many backgrounds and the hiring of more faculty of color, with varying degrees of success.

CORNELL

In the wake of a racial bias incident in February, Cornell University has been examining the quality of its course offerings with regards to diversity. According to Cornell Vice Provost for Diversity and Faculty Development Robert Harris, also a professor of African-American history, the University has begun to assemble a list of courses addressing diversity modeled on a guide to undergraduate race and ethnicity courses published by Princeton in 2001.

Some students, however, want more drastic changes. The student group Challenging Racism and Systems of Hierarchy has demanded that the University institute a graduation requirement composed of three courses in diversity issues, focusing on "systems of oppression" and community service.

CRASH member Latoya Brackett voices cautious optimism. "Everything that we've asked the administration to do that they've been able to do, they're doing it," she said. But the diversity requirement? "That's going to take a long time."

Brackett may be fighting an uphill battle. According to Harris, student surveys show that while nearly three quarters would like to have issues of race and ethnicity become a greater part of the curriculum, less than half would like it to become a requirement.

HARVARD

Home to the Civil Rights Project, an institute devoted to rebuilding the civil rights movement in America, Harvard has its own history of pro-diversity thought. Harvard's Graduate School of Education also houses the National Campus Diversity Project, dedicated to making universities more multicultural.

In 2002, the University saw protests from ethnic and women's rights groups on campus advocating for more curricular and faculty diversity. Much of the frustration stemmed from a perceived lack of responsiveness from the administration, at that time headed Larry Summers.

Harvard routinely goes through a process of curricular review, issuing recommendations for changes to the required courseload. The most recent report, published in November 2005-which contains a history of Columbia's Core Curriculum-makes no explicit mention of race consciousness or oppression.

The debate over faculty, however, seems to have died down. "Ethnic diversity among faculty has been a relatively quiet issue," wrote senior Henry Seton, a member of the University's standing committee on pedagogy review, in an e-mail. He attributed the fall to the growth of the African American studies department in the 1990s, while noting that he had heard "serious concerns about dwindling numbers for faculty of color" at the various graduate schools.

YALE

Although Yale possesses a number of diversity programs in its graduate schools, students say that it could do better on the undergraduate level. Currently, administrators are dealing with protests over racially insensitive articles recently published in the Yale Herald and Rumpus, which have reignited a push for Asian American studies at the University.

Yale doesn't have an Asian American Studies department and, according to Asian American Task Force Chair David Tian, a junior, there aren't any tenured professors in that area of study. Although the effort has become stronger in recent years, the group has existed since the 1970s.

"We feel that there is a definite deficiency in this area," said Tian. "There haven't been any concrete steps taken in order to increase the availability of Asian American studies."