Educate Yourself: Diversity Classes You Can Take RIGHT NOW

graphic courtesy of shuttershock.com

If you’re a Maxwell student here at Syracuse, you received an email from Dean David Van Slyke last Tuesday addressing the first incident of racist graffiti in Day Hall. At the end of the email the Dean wrote, “As an academic institution, the University offers many courses across all departments where our faculty and students vigorously examine and discuss issues of diversity and inclusion.” He went on to encourage students to take classes such as these in order to further educate themselves on issues relevant to the #notagainSU movement. 

Some of these courses include:

- ECN 304 Economics of Social Issues (Professor Liu)

- HST 300 Race and the Law (Professor Gonda)

- ANT 448 Imperial Remains: Archeology of Colonialism (Professor Pezzarossi)

- MAX 123 Critical Issues for the United States (Professor Rupert)

- PSC 300 Black Feminist Politics (Professor Jackson)

- PSC 378 Power and Identity (Professor Cohen)

- SOC 248 Racial and Ethnic Inequalities (Professor Adamo)

- SOC 433 Race, Class, and Gender (Professor Green)

There are also many classes offered in the College of Arts and Sciences that tackle diversity topics. Check out this list of diversity credit classes compiled by the Newhouse school for more good suggestions: http://guidebooks.newhouse.syr.edu/guidebook/undergraduate-singly-enrolled/major-requirements-in-communications/diversity-requirement/?y=2019

After the many incidents of the past month, it’s blatantly obvious that Syracuse’s campus culture is one that perpetuates intolerance, ignorance, and passiveness. When listening to students at the sit-in speak about their experience, improving the education of both students and faculty on issues of diversity and inclusion is a topic that has been frequently brought up. Although it’s obvious the SEM 100 curriculum isn’t cutting it, the classes above exist right now, and are available for all students (read: white students) who want to do better. Because of these responses, we wanted to look into the effect that diversity type classes actually have on both white and POC students.

As of Fall 2019 there are exactly 980 black undergraduate students out of a campus of 15,275 total undergrads at Syracuse University. That’s 6.4%. These numbers alone show that we’re overdue for a lesson in diversity, and that, as a school, we need to educate ourselves on what we can do to facilitate more diverse spaces on campus.

Maybe you’re genuinely interested in the topic of of one of these courses, or maybe you just need a diversity credit to get that little green check on Degreeworks. Either way, you’re enrolled, and that’s what matters. Research institutions like the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Ball State University have found that professors can more effectively teach diversity and inclusion by including a diverse range of texts and sources in the curriculum and making students aware of civic engagement and community service opportunities outside of class. Pushing students to gain a deeper, more complex understanding of identity and historical issues in class helps students better understand and interact with each other outside of class.

This is not to ignore the underlying issues present in our classrooms when it comes to teaching these topics, namely the lack of diverse faculty and students in these spaces, and the discomfort minority students feel when asked to speak up about their experiences in rooms where they don’t feel represented or respected.

We know that completing a diversity credit or taking one class won’t fix all of SU’s problems. However, a basic education is better than no education, and it’s about damn time that all of us start educating ourselves about diversity and thinking critically about how we can make our campus community a welcoming and inclusive place. So if you’ve never taken one of these classes, please do.