A controversial Psychology professor has decided to teach his course -- but cannot offer any credit for it.
Francisco Gil-White, an Assistant Professor of Psychology, will teach his course: "The Psychology of Ethnicity" without the approval of his department.
Gil-White will unofficially teach the course -- formerly listed as PSYC 472 -- for no credit in the multi-purpose room of DuBois College House. It will be open to all students and community members.
"I decided to teach it anyway because this is a really important topic that I think people should be learning about," Gil-White said.
According to Gil-White, PSYC 472 was cancelled because the Psychology Department placed new restrictions on who is qualified to register for the course.
Psychology Department Chair Robert DeRubeis, however, asserted that all new seminars, like Gil-White's, need departmental approval to be taught a second time.
"When the head of the Department's Curriculum Committee, Professor Rescorla, conveyed to Professor Gil-White some questions and concerns the committee had about the course syllabus, Professor Gil-White refused to address them," DeRubeis wrote in an e-mail interview.
As a result, Rescorla decided on the prerequisites without input from the professor. According to DeRubeis, the usual prerequisites were put in place, though students could still apply -- on a case-by-case basis -- to take the course.
College freshman Michelle Rajunov, who took one of Gil-White's courses this spring, said she tried to register for Psychology of Ethnicity but was denied access because she lacked the proper prerequisites. She said she plans to take PSYC 472 for no credit this semester.
"If that's what I want to learn, why not offer that opportunity?" she said. "Who is the psychology department to tell me what I can and cannot learn?"
However, DeRubeis was satisfied with the current solution.
"I am comfortable with his finding a forum for this material outside the college curriculum," DeRubeis said.
Gil-White publicized the non-credit course via his personal Web site, on which the syllabus and other information is available.
The course focuses on what Gil-White calls "essentialism" and the psychology of racism.
According to Gil-White, one's essence "is transmitted biologically, and is causally responsible for making people behave and look the way they do.
"I give a whole evolutionary theory for why this may be the case," Gil-White said.
According to the syllabus published on Gil-White's Web site, students will cover a variety of material from major psychology publications.
Gil-White has authored several articles on ethnicity in journals such as Ethnic and Racial Studies and Current Anthropology. According to his official biography on the Psychology Department Web site, Gil-White's expertise is "cultural transmission processes."
"The course is an attempt to give the students a panorama of the various possible explanations for ethnic and racial prejudice," Gil-White said. "I happen to think that most of the explanations out there are not very good at all."
