For some, diversity is about interpersonal differences or
interaction between peoples. For others, it is a study in
multiculturalism or of oppression on an institutional level.
Professor Lisbeth Gant-Britton calls it a “gateway to the
world.”
Before UCLA can begin to reassess its role as the only
University of California campus that does not require its
undergraduate students to take a course designed to explore
diversity, some faculty and students say an effort to pass such a
requirement rests on how to define a word with such a multitude of
definitions.
A committee within the undergraduate student government has been
working to draft a proposal for a diversity requirement, which
would require undergraduate students to take a course or two
related to diversity as part of their general education.
Sophia Kozak, Academic Affairs commissioner of the Undergraduate
Students Association Council heads the student effort to draft the
proposal, and says that people are often willing to approach the
study of diversity from the standpoint of learning about a culture
other than one’s own.
“People are very quick to accept that definition ““
of understanding (it) as interpersonal differences,” she
said.
Though Kozak said she prefers to focus less on the definition
and more on the concept, she believes diversity should be studied
in the context of oppression.
“(It’s) divulging individual differences between
people to one of oppression and how oppression plays out,”
she said.
Kozak said studying diversity in the context of unique
interpersonal differences “renders invisible completely the
existence of oppression.”
Cherie Frances, interim director of graduate outreach, diversity
and fellowships, said diversity and oppression are not
analogous.
“I think it does it a disservice to call it
oppression,” Frances said.
“I wouldn’t use that as a focus. I’d choose
something more positive,” she added, saying a diversity
requirement should be about helping students understand the
benefits of a multicultural society.
Gant-Britton, who works at the Ralph J. Bunche Center for
African American Studies, said she disagrees with both
Kozak’s definition and the definition of diversity as a study
of interpersonal differences.
For Gant-Britton, the value of diversity is not in the
definition, but in the real-world application of what students
learn. She said teaching diversity is about helping students learn
to work within a multicultural world.
Gant-Britton added that though ideally the university would
cultivate a better understanding of diversity throughout its entire
curriculum, a diversity requirement of one or two classes would be
“better than not having anything.”
Professor Joseph Kiskis, who teaches at UC Davis, said the
diversity requirement there is not about oppression, though
oppression is often an integral part of the study of diversity.
According to the UC Davis Web site, the purpose of the
requirement is, in part, to present to students with materials not
previously presented during the course of most high school
educations.
With the exception of UCLA, each UC campus has its own diversity
requirement, and those requirements in no way conform to one
another.
Students at UC Berkeley are required to take a course in
American Cultures, a subject that explores race, ethnicity and
culture against the backdrop of American society.
Robert Allen, a UC Berkeley professor of ethnic studies and
African American studies, said Berkeley’s American Cultures
requirement helps students develop a better understanding of their
own campus community.
“It brings you a situation where students from a different
culture can have some shared experiences … looking at
similarities and differences of cultures,” he said.
Though diversity requirements are meant to help students explore
cultures other than their own, some worry that because courses in
ethnic studies generally fulfill those requirements, students of
non-white ethnic backgrounds would choose to study “their
own” cultures.
UCLA history Professor Edward Alpers believes a diversity
requirement could be valuable but that allowing students to take
one or two courses that relate to their own cultures could not be
defined as a study in diversity.
“I don’t think that cuts it,” he said.
Alpers said there is value in studying one’s own
background, but “that’s different than a diversity
requirement.”
Though the Undergraduate Council of the Academic Senate briefly
discussed the idea of a diversity requirement last quarter, it is
expected to revisit the issue this fall.
Alpers remembers working on a proposal for such a requirement
““ not last quarter or last year, but a decade ago.
He said the implementation of a diversity requirement has been
discussed for years, but logistics of structuring such a
requirement has stunted its development.
“People really have a chance to think about what
(diversity) means, and that’s not easy to do. I think it has
to be a lot of things,” he said, adding that the process is
one that must be slow.
“You can’t just slap it into the syllabus,” he
said.
Alpers said the idea has been met with opposition in the past
and that various members of the faculty and administration were
never in favor of it.
Professor Charles Buchanan, vice chairman of academics in the
physics department, said he remembers working with committees
exploring a diversity requirement seven or eight years ago.
“Various constituencies and groups wanted different things
… we weren’t able to put something together that made
sense,” he said.
Mahdi Abu-Omar, assistant professor of chemistry, said a
diversity requirement would be controversial, especially given that
many general education courses already in the curriculum address
diversity.
“What would be the need for this as a requirement if the
courses are already in existence?” he said.
Some argue that on a campus with a population that includes
people of various ages, ethnicities and sexualities, a diversity
requirement is not the right way to present the desired ideas to
students.
“I’m opposed to it because I think diversity is
based on your surroundings. … I think it’s acquired through
your surroundings,” said Allen Rowin, a UCLA alumnus who
graduated in 2003.
There is also the danger that some students would become
apathetic about such a requirement, but Carlos Haro, assistant
director of the Chicana/o Research Studies Center, said the value
of what students learn would easily offset any complaints they
might have.
“How much enthusiasm is there on the part of students for
90 percent of the courses they take at the university? But once
they are enrolled in courses, they’re obviously learning
something,” he said.
Katherine Perdiguerra, a first-year undeclared student at UC
Berkeley, said students concerned about fulfilling requirements
often don’t take classes that aren’t mandatory.
Though Perdiguerra said she would not take an American Cultures
course if it weren’t required, she looks forward to selecting
a course in that area.
“It’s an added bonus,” she said. “I have
to take it, but it’s an interesting subject.”