As Colorado College continues to diversify its student body in terms of race and social class, students are increasingly demanding an open space in which they can talk about issues surrounding not only race and social class, but also gender, sexual orientation, and other minority concerns.
In an effort to bolster these voices, senior Han Sayles and junior Amairani Alamillo released a petition on Wednesday addressed to President Jill Tiefenthaler, Dean of Students Sandra Wong, and the faculty of the College requesting a campus-wide curriculum diversification.
So far, the petition has 411 of the 500 necessary signatures.
“A lot of departments and programs incorporate issues of diversity already,” said Sayles. “Some, like the Religion Department, have reconstructed their entire curriculum to address these issues. What we’re trying to do with this petition is encourage the work that is already being done and say that, yes, we support it and want more of it.”
The petition declares, “We, the students of Colorado College, believe that every student who graduates from CC should have a basic grasp of issues concerning responsible citizenship in a globalized world.” This skill, the petition argues, is essential in equipping students with the tools necessary to “confront the hurdles that we are facing today” in the “often hostile, racist, sexist, classist and homophobic” environment.
“Students are asking for an education that is relevant to the 21st century,” said head of the Race and Ethnic Studies Department Professor Claire Garcia. “This will help prepare them for global citizenship, giving them the theoretical and practical skills they need to deal with differences in the work force and on a policy level as voters and engaged citizens.”
The demands include the diversification of all departments’ syllabi, a reassessment of the current all-college course requirements to ensure the introduction of issues of global and social inequality, faculty development regarding these issues, and the formation of a Race, Ethnic Studies and Migration major.
Students on CC Confessions and similar forums have expressed mixed, but predominately negative, reactions to the petition’s message. One post said, “While I don’t disagree with the fact that there are subtle ways to bring up issues of humane studies in every class at CC, those ways can at best be subtle; the last thing a CC education needs is more preaching. I urge the petitioners to study the current curriculum more carefully.”
“We’ve thought a lot about these CC Confessions and related comments and have just tried to stay out of it,” said Sayles. “We want to promote in-person discussion. We are happy, though, that students are talking about this and having debates about what our curriculum is.”
One of the major misconceptions that Sayles and Alamillo have found students on these anonymous forums have is that the petition demands professors restructure every syllabus for every class to include discussions of diversity.
“The departments would look at their curriculum as a whole to see how they address diversity and inclusion,” said Sayles. “People are concerned that in high-level technical courses, the professor would be paying lip service to it in an inauthentic manner. That’s not the goal of this petition.”
Faculty have also voiced their concerns in predominately informal settings, arguing that the goals of curriculum diversification infringes on academic freedom.
“Faculty are the champions of ‘you’re not the boss of me,’” said Garcia. “They need to look at such diversification in the context of the critical questions they ask and the atmosphere in the classroom that they create.”
Sayles, Alamillo, and Garcia all want the discussion regarding the petition itself and its implications to continue. Sayles and Alamillo are hosting a discussion for next Wednesday, April 8 at 5 p.m. (location TBD) in order to transform the anonymity of the CC Confession-like responses to an in-person debate.