Fate of diversity mandate up in air

Many School of Arts and Sciences professors are concerned that the debate over the revamped College curriculum has strayed from its original intent.

Concerned students and faculty initially advocated for an academic requirement that would focus on U.S. minority culture, but some now worry that the focus has become diluted by a political agenda.

At the most recent discussion over the requirement, held last week, many attendees focused on the broader political message that such a requirement could send about the importance of diversity, rather than on its academic merit.

And some professors think that the issue should have been put to rest by now. With the curriculum set to debut this fall, Penn Finance professor Francis Diebold said that now is not the time to be looking into more curriculum changes.

Still, the debate refuses to die down.

At the upcoming April 18 SAS general faculty meeting, College of Arts and Sciences Dean Dennis DeTurck expects, members of a faculty committee debating the requirement will weigh in on it once more.

The committee was created in December when the faculty approved a new requirement focusing on global cultures at a meeting of the Faculty Senate, the main governing body for professors.

Student advocacy groups and interested professors have also organized meetings to help define what forms such a requirement could take.

DeTurck said he thinks that any new requirement should have a primarily academic purpose and that any political agenda would be secondary.

Other faculty members have expressed additional concern about the practicality of discussing another requirement when the current curriculum changes have yet to be implemented.

And as the debate becomes more drawn out and the issues more entangled, some say a U.S. cultural-analysis requirement resembles a similar effort that ended unsuccessfully.

DeTurck said that in the 1980s, there was a movement to institute a "perspectives requirement" that he said was similar to the one now being discussed. It failed to pass a faculty ballot vote.

But it may be that the curriculum is moving toward greater diversity, with or without such requirements.

According to University archivist Mark Lloyd, the issue has an extensive history on campus.

During the 1960s and '70s, he said, activists began pushing for more academic diversity. This led to the creation of the African American Studies Department and the Women's Studies Program. Other cultural-studies programs would follow.

Following the failure of the "perspectives requirement," Penn hosted a series of workshops and conferences on diversity in the early 1990s. They were not considered for part of any formal curriculum, Lloyd said.

The formation in 2003 of the Student Movement for Change, a group of student activists who voiced support for a U.S. culture requirement and spawned the current debate, stemmed from those earlier efforts.

Meanwhile, since nobody knows how long the debate over this requirement will take, its advocates are working to keep the campus interested.

Former Latino Coalition Chairman Jona Ludmir, who completed his degree in December, said he hopes concerned students will continue to host more events, publish literature on the subject for students and educate the campus.

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