Faculty Institute for Diversity members take on task of diversifying curricula

As Sen. Barack Obama made history by becoming the first African-American to be a major party's presumptive nominee for president of the United States, 20 Cornell faculty members were pursuing a more humble, albeit equally profound, change of course.

The Cornell Faculty Institute for Diversity gathered for three days at a conference center in Canandaigua, N.Y., June 1-4 to discuss ways to diversify Cornell's curriculum to address such issues as class, disability, ethnicity, gender, nationality, race, religion and sexual orientation. The conference, organized by Cornell's Center for Learning and Teaching and the University Diversity Council, focused on how faculty can incorporate elements of diversity into new or existing courses by fall 2010.

The institute is one of four initiatives being implemented by Cornell based on recommendations from the 2006 Teagle Foundation study, "Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in College Completion and Achievement: What Works and Why." These initiatives are a priority for President David Skorton, who has asked all Cornell teaching personnel to consider additional ways to foster an awareness of diversity issues in teaching and in interactions with students and colleagues.

The institute is composed of a diverse cohort of humanists, social scientists, scientists and professional school faculty members, from lecturers to full professors.

"This is a dedicated group who were selected from more than 40 faculty applications," said Robert L. Harris Jr., vice provost for diversity and faculty development through June and co-organizer of the institute with Helene Selco, director of the Learning and Teaching Center. "Each of us is committed to making diversity happen at a fundamental level by improving the way we teach."

The challenges to transforming curriculum are daunting but not insurmountable, said Johnella Butler, provost and vice president of academic affairs at Spelman College. "We are presenting the faculty here with some of the pedagogical tools for diversity that have proven successful in the past," said Butler, who served as co-facilitator for the institute with Susan Rosser, a professor at Georgia Tech University and a national leader in advancing women and minorities in the sciences and science curricula. "Some of this work is about learning how to teach students in a way that invites them into course content so it is sensible to them."

In a morning session June 4, participants addressed the challenges and stages of incorporating gender consciousness into their curricula. Instructors may, for example, start with gender as an add-on, or a problem, anomaly or a deviation from an assumed norm. More advanced stages include focusing specifically on gender and ultimately creating a diverse and all-inclusive curriculum, said Rosser.

Cindy Van Es, a senior lecturer in applied economics, and Nan Yang, an assistant professor of operations management in the Johnson School, discussed addressed the challenge of teaching prerequisite courses where students must learn, for example, the fundamentals of statistics or operations management cases. How does a professor make "tool box" courses like introductory statistics diverse when the material is the same for everyone, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or disability, Van Es asked.

Rosser suggested that one way would be to "move content into context" by showing how special knowledge of, say, engineering is actually applied in society. But teachers know that the examples have to fit the methodology.

"It's difficult when using case studies in management," said Yang. "Because the truth is that men dominate in management, and I don't know how I can change my syllabus to reflect more women where there aren't that many."

One strategy, Rosser suggested, is to pursue international business models where women are more widely represented at the management level.

Srinagesh Gavirneni, also an assistant professor of operations management at the Johnson School, said he intends to include diversity in his course in part by inviting more diverse guests speakers "and get them to talk about diversity in their business," among other changes.

Ron Harris-Warrick, professor of neurobiology and behavior, who assisted in developing the institute, said that he diversifies his class on the neurobiology of addiction by adding studies of how women and people from various backgrounds respond differently to drugs. But at the end of the day, he still has to teach how the brain works, and that is pure hard science, he said.

For those struggling with how to make their teaching more diverse, Rosser assured them that it's a work in progress and that if they are only at the level of merely putting diversity into their curriculum as an "add-on," at least it is a start in the right direction.

"When we and a lot of other people started this effort 30 years ago, the diversity concept we have now didn't even exist," she said. "The fact that many other colleges and universities are now doing this is evidence of progress."

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