Multiculturalism now part of UNLV life

Stacy J. Willis

Thursday, Feb. 11, 1999 | 11:18 a.m.

When an able-bodied, Christian, white, male, heterosexual UNLV football player squished himself into a classroom desk to learn about the influence of women and minorities on American history a few semesters ago, Ellen Rose considered it a banner moment for higher education.

"The text book was 'The Meaning of Difference,' " said Rose, the director of the women's studies program at UNLV, who was teaching the class. "At the end of the course, he said to me, 'This course hasn't been about a subject, it's been about life.'

"Some students think they're going to the university to get an education that will enable them to get a job, but in fact, our notion as professors is to enable them to be good citizens in life," Rose said. "That's the idea with multiculturalism in course requirements."

After much ado, the UNLV faculty senate on Tuesday approved a change in the undergraduate core curriculum that will require all students to complete a multicultural course and a course about international populations. The change, once approved by the president and provost, will take effect beginning with the year 2000 freshmen.

Educators are scrambling to characterize the change: Maybe it's controversial or maybe it's hip or maybe it's about a decade late in arriving.

Or maybe it's virtually inconsequential. "The students I advise won't really be affected. They already take anthropology or sociology to fulfill their social science requirements," said Roy Ogawa, an associate professor of computer science who sits on the committee now charged with identifying which courses qualify as "multicultural."

"It really has no major effect. Most students are already taking these courses. People got so excited and said this puts a burden on the students, but it doesn't," Ogawa said. Students will be allowed to double-dip -- that is, take one course that fulfills their social science requirements and their multi-cultural course requirements simultaneously. Multicultural courses are those that pertain to particular U.S. racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, gender and handicapped cultures. So a class in ethnic anthropology or gender sociology will likely fulfill both requirements -- the one that already exists and the new requirement.

"In a certain sense, I think they wanted to add some concept of diversity, just because of the word diversity, without any real substantial change on paper," Ogawa said. "I can understand the reason why the university would want to do PR-type things. I have nothing against them doing things for that reason, as long as it is only surface things, and it appears to me that this is what it is."

The requirement poses no real burden to faculty, either, administrators say.

"There are plenty of courses on campus that already deal with these types of things. We probably won't need to create any new courses," said Michael Bowers, college of liberal arts associate dean and the chairman of the ad hoc committee on multicultural requirements which proposed the changes.

Whether the change comes as a PR message or will have a profound education impact, UNLV is not pushing any envelopes by adopting multicultural requirements just before the turn of the 21st century.

"We're behind the curve," said Bowers. "Many other universities have this sort of thing and have had for years."

So far behind the curve, in fact, that as UNLV gets on the multicultural course bandwagon, other universities are busy figuring out how to get off of it and fold their far-stretched curricula back into more inclusive mainstream course offerings. They are trying to get American history professors to include information on minority groups in their courses, rather than create and require separate multicultural courses, Rose said.

"That kind of (reverse) curriculum transformation is going on nationwide," said Rose. "There are seminars being offered to faculty in other schools to learn to work on their mainstream curriculum to make it more inclusive, with the idea of eliminating the need for separate multicultural courses -- but not eliminating the subject matter."

In fact, Rose said, there is a Center for Curriculum Transformation that acts as a nationwide think tank for universities that are trying to revise the mainstream offerings to include diverse cultures. Universities such as the University of Arizona in Tucson apply for grants intended to fund the multicultural education of faculty and revise mainstream curricula.

At UNLV, there is little incentive yet for professors who teach the so-called "dead white male" courses to re-work their curricula, Rose said.

"We need carrots from above to make it desirable for faculty to educate themselves," said Rose. "In other universities, faculty who agree to participate get a small stipend or time off or re-assigned time if they work on their curriculum to be more inclusive."

Still, some faculty and administrators feel that formally recognizing multiculturalism in the curriculum is important.

"Students are graduating into a multicultural United States, and we want to prepare them for that. Tuesday's vote was a step towards that vision," said Rose.