Faculty Council is taking a step back to re-examine the diversity intensive course requirement proposal after it was voted down in May, a result many council members were not expecting.
The council met Thursday to discuss how to proceed with the proposal, and what might have hindered its initial passage.
Faculty members were nearly split on the issue, with only a 20-vote difference between those supporting and rejecting the proposal. Now, Faculty Council is trying to collect more information about the votes. Negative votes stem from multiple concerns about the proposal.
“The bottom line is when you collect all those unhappy people…and add all those people together you end up with a negative vote,” Faculty Council Chairwoman Leona Rubin said.
Faculty Council discussed multiple reasons why faculty members chose to vote against the proposition. This includes feeling that the requirement wasn’t needed as a response to individual incidents, the concern that the requirement is too general and that it was too narrow.
The proposal would not have necessarily required students to take an extra course but rather a diversity-intensive course that also fulfills a graduation requirement. But some faculty members were concerned about the requirement infringing the academic freedom to choose course content and curriculum.
“Part of the problem is that we came in with the assumption that this was a good idea,” Faculty Council Vice Chairman Clyde Bentley said. “We didn’t try to disprove our hypothesis.”
Many council members wondered why they did not hear about these concerns before they took a vote. Rubin said one reason could be that those faculty members wanted to avoid backlash.
“There are fears about saying anything that has anything to do with a reservation or a negative thought about diversity,” Rubin said.
Rubin emphasized the need for the council to find out what the issues are and address those. One possibility is sending out an anonymous electronic survey in August to collect data on why faculty voted the way they did. She also recommended forums with faculty members to discuss their concerns in greater detail.
“It goes back to our earlier discussion about civility,” Bentley said. “This issue about being afraid to say something among of your peers is part of that problem.”
Rubin said she believes the Faculty Council is partially at fault for not representing the entire faculty accurately. Miscommunication both to and from the Faculty Council could be part of the reason the council members were unaware of the varying strong concerns about the proposal, she said.
Rubin also clarified that the proposal was not a knee-jerk reaction to the actions of “stupid individuals” but that it has been considered for the past eight years.
“I can tell you from working with freshmen that we do need it, personally,” Rubin said. “A lot of freshmen aren’t on the same page with (diversity). I thought (the proposal) was a no-brainer, but apparently not.”
