Portland State University Magazine Fall 1991

Portland State joins the debate as it makes a new ethnic, cultural, and gender diversity course requirement. In the fall of 1992, Portland State will initiate a new academic require– ment-similar to others adopted by universities across the country under an enormous amount of debate. The new requirement will man– date students to take six hours of cour– ses dealing with ethnic, cultural, and gender diversity. Those courses may be in literature, Black Studies, Women's Studies, anthropology, history, or a number of other depart– ments, but the common theme re– qu ires they present a point of view from a cu lture other than that of white males. '' ...people are encountering people from other cultures, and are finding they are unequipped lO PSU to deal with them. -Hugo Maynard '' Advocates say it's about time. Many major American un iversities– as well as University of Oregon, O regon State University and Southern O regon State College– already have similar requirements, all born in response to facu lty and student demands that the perspectives of women and minorities be fa irly represented in college courses. They also say the requirement will place no undue hardship on students: they won't have to take any addition– al courses to graduate, but within the general 54-hour requiremen t of scien– ces, social sc iences and humanities, six hours of courses must present a mu lticu ltural perspective. Even without the requirement, it is almost impossible not to take at least one of the courses. Hugo Maynard, psychology professor and head of the Academic Requirements Committee (ARC ) at the time the requirement was approved, made a pre liminary survey of the catalog and fo und 171 courses in 15 departments that could meet the ethnic, cultural, and gender diversity criteria. Because of the financial circum– stances of Portland State, the ARC did not recommended a special diver– sity course. At this point, all courses fitting the requirement would be from the University's current curriculum. But it remains controversial, just as it was at Stanford , Michigan, and other universities where it now ex ists. How do you decide what courses do an adequate job of presenting diver– sity, and by whose definition ? Couldn't this be a tool used by instruc– tors to indoctrinate students with their own political philosophy? What happens to professors whose courses don't make the approved list; will they be labeled bigots or sex ists by not presenting the black or feminist perspective of their subject-even if the subj ect doesn't lend itself to the question ? These are questions PSU will be grappling with over the next year. They are tough quest ions, and they will take considerable research, discus– sion, and d iplomacy to answer. And once they are answered, there's no doubt that it will be a subject of debate for years to come. Proponents of the new requ ire– ment say that it will simply expose students to issues that are relevant to today's society, and will present facets of many subj ects that in years past might have been overlooked in a traditional curriculum. Says Maynard , "The fact is, in every walk of life, people are encountering people from other cu ltures, and are finding they are unequipped to deal with them." That was the thinking of Darre ll Mi llner, head of the Black Studies Department when he proposed the idea to the PSU Faculty Senate last fal l. His reason: that we live in a country where day-to-day contact with persons of varying cultural and ethnic backgrounds is the rule rather than the exception. PSU students will undoubtedly encounter issues of race and gender in their working lives, and to deal with them effective– ly they must have the analytical tools to form opin ions, evaluate situations, and learn to live in a multicultural environment.