Columnist Ken Ward: Diversity gets short shrift in UNLV grants

Ken Ward

Saturday, May 3, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

SAY what you will about multicultural education. Yes, it's one of those hot-button phrases that smacks of political correctness and unreconstructed liberalism.

But the undisputed reality is that our society embraces a multitude of cultures. It always has, and it will continue to do so as long as our economy is a global one.

America's strength has been in its ability to meld disparate cultures into a unifying force. Still, you don't have to be a latter-day Alexis de Tocqueville to realize that the old melting pot ain't what it used to be.

Conservative thinkers worry that the rise of the multicultural experience means the downfall of this country. After all, they point out, peace and prosperity are hard to find in nations riven by secular and sectarian divisions.

Such thinkers may be protesting too much, however. In their lust for good old days, they risk suppressing the rich diversity that we enjoy today. Instead of trying to get everyone dancing to the same tune, they should be learning and sharing a few new rhythms.

That's the premise behind a proposal from UNLV's Instructional and Cultural Studies department.

The department recently drew up a plan to host a series of seminars for university and Clark County School District instructors. The workshops were designed to guide and counsel up to 2,000 teachers on the fine points of multicultural instruction.

"The instructional strategies and learning methods would focus on students from different cultures," says Mark Bannatyne, an assistant professor in the department. "We would address in-service issues with the Department of Education."

Bannatyne and his cohorts saw the program as a natural fit for this increasingly international city. And as for the campus, President Carol Harter frequently touts UNLV as "an urban university."

CCSD, meantime, has not stepped forward with a comprehensive program of its own. Though muliticultural instruction apparently is not high on their priority list, district officials nonetheless are quick to blame deteriorating test scores on burgeoning minority enrollment.

The UNLV educators saw all this as an opening when the university's foundation made $350,000 in grant money available to faculty this year. Bannatyne's $45,000 proposal would launch the seminars and establish a local chapter of the National Association of Multicultural Education for community outreach.

"This would ensure an ongoing program," he says.

The proposal was supported by the school's dean as consistent with the department's mandate and the university's mission. Bannatyne and colleague Porter Troutman knew there were 90 proposals seeking more than $2 million, but they figured their bid would get at least partial funding. That would allow the curricular studies department to pursue matching funds.

They got zero.

"It's disgraceful," Bannatyne says now. "I don't want this to sound like sour grapes, but come on. The hotel management school got $31,000 to assess 'learner outcomes'? They're just now deciding to do this? It should have been done all along and done within their budget."

Provost Doug Ferraro doesn't recall where the multicultural bid ranked, but he notes that the Instructional and Curricular Studies department did receive the second biggest grant -- a $50,000 program with the school district to speed up alternative licensure of teachers. Most of the awards ranged between $10,000 and $40,000.

And whither multicultural education?

As they say in sports, wait until next year. Ferraro and Harter are hoping to make the so-called Planning Initiative Grants an annual affair. But count Bannatyne out. He's moving on to Purdue University.

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Speaking of UNLV, remember the dust-up over Carol Harter's performance evaluation? The president took some heat for keeping the faculty's assessment of her work under wraps.

But that's just half the story. It seems that the evaluations were to be returned to the president's office in envelopes bearing each instructor's name. Failure to sign the envelope would mean that its contents would not be included in the results.

The faculty were told that the envelopes would be shredded and that their identities would remain anonymous. Yeah, and Tinker Bell is the Rebels' new mascot.

As one professor put it: "I never sent the thing in. Do you think I'm crazy?"

A random sampling suggests that a sizable number of faculty, paranoid or not, felt the same way and chose not to participate. So even if the results are released, undoubtedly in sanitized form, this is one evaluation that looks stacked from the beginning.

Hail to the chief.