U. of Missouri faculty members cite myriad reasons for voting against requiring all students to take diversity class
Columbia Daily Tribune
June 13, 2011
University of Missouri faculty cited myriad reasons for why they didn’t agree to require all students to take a diversity class. Misinformation wasn’t one of them.
Some instructors simply don’t think a diversity requirement is necessary, said Leona Rubin, chairwoman of the MU Faculty Council. Others thought it was a knee-jerk reaction to racially charged incidents on campus. Some saw the proposal as too broad; others thought it was too narrow and violated academic freedom.
There were “other reasons I’d rather not discuss in public,” Rubin told Faculty Council members yesterday. And those reasons, she said, highlight the need to require a diversity course.
MU instructors in May were asked to approve a plan that would have required all students to take a diversity class as part of general education requirements. Existing courses already teaching diversity issues could have been deemed as “diversity-intensive” courses to meet the requirement — much like MU’s existing writing-intensive program.
The proposal failed with 232 members voting against it and 210 voting for it. At the time, Rubin blamed the Faculty Council for not communicating the plan well enough to faculty at large.
