Monitor investigates diversity’s place in liberal arts education

Edward Scott, Jr.- Staff Writer

12/9/11

The idea of a liberal arts education is to offer a broad spectrum of perspectives and world views with particular attention to understanding different disciplines and beliefs. By contrasting those, the student will ideally learn critical thinking skills and leave the college as a well-rounded and less ignorant individual. It could be argued that diversity in faculty and staff plays a role in providing such an education in addition to diversity in subject matter. William Jewell College has, according to the office of human resources, 70 faculty members, 50 percent of whom are women, but only three percent of whom are ethnic minorities. Does that level of diversity among the faculty have any impact on students’ receiving a quality liberal arts education?

The College’s course catalogue states, “The aim of the academic core curriculum is to prepare students to be both successful and reflective citizens of a global community.” One of the curriculum’s goals is “to enable students to apply liberal arts knowledge, skills and attitudes to evaluate authentic problems of human experience in terms of varied cultural and social perspectives.”

Dr. Ron Witzke, associate dean for the core curriculum and interim chairman of the Department of Music, does not believe that one needs persons of certain demographics to present those demographics’ perspectives.
“I don’t think we have to have a person of that world view teach that world view in order to make it authentic,” Witzke said.

Witzke maintained that “a responsible scholar looks through other lenses,” and a major task of the faculty at William Jewell is “to responsibly present other views ... Until you take responsibility and read the literature, it limits your conversation.”

According to Witzke, “teaching in the core curriculum is, in itself, an exercise in expanding.” The College’s core curriculum is divided into three levels, and he noted that each level-two category has its own set of goals and objectives. At that level, Witzke said, there is much more freedom for faculty to choose texts that they believe best meet those objectives.

As institutions craft their curricula, addressing matters of diversity includes considering what influences the professors’ textual selections and interpretations of shared texts. Witzke stated that “complete objectivity is impossible in the classroom.”

It seems then that the professors’ textual selections and interpretations could be shaped by their own world views.

Dr. Donna Gardner, professor of education and chairwoman of the department of education, rejects the notion that one’s background necessarily determines one’s perspective on any issue. She said that “for every Clarence Thomas, there is a Cornell West.” In other words, minorities do not think as a group, but as individuals. Not all members of minorities think alike. She noted that some minority faculty members have even asserted that they would not be the voice of their demographics.

“It’s not a group of people. [Minority faculty members] are all individuals, and they all bring something different,” Gardner said. “[The role of diversity in education] is more challenging ways of thinking ... The hallmark of a liberal arts education is the ability to think critically.”

According to Gardner, students should be thinking about and testing the validity of the information presented as well as the credibility of the source of that information. Students should be looking at their and others’ experiences and be exposed to the reality that “the way they see the world is not the way that everyone sees the world.”

Though both Gardner and Witzke stated that offering a variety of presented perspectives and encouraging different ways of thinking about those are the fundamental aspects of diversity’s impact on a liberal arts education, they concede that more demographic diversity—in ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status, gender, sex, sexual orientation and other areas—among the faculty is always desirable.

According to both of them, the College has attempted and is attempting to garner more minority faculty members. Historically speaking, the College has never had an abundance of minority faculty members.  And Gardner added, “The fact of the matter is that institutions change slowly.”

Dr. Cecelia Robinson, professor of English, has worked at the College since 1979. She is the first black faculty member to achieve the rank of professor and currently is the only black full-time faculty member at the College.
Robinson, too, acknowledged the importance of different ways of thinking and affirms that her culture plays a role in presenting information.
“I bring my traditions and culture to this campus,” Robinson said. “I’m sure that [the experience of a student having Responsible Self, for example, from a minority professor rather than a professor of the majority] would be different … Literature is about the human experience … I do believe that having someone from a different culture will give [students] a different perspective and world view because that individual brings, with him or her, his or her own experiences.”

She says that at a few points during her three decades on the Hill, she has encountered a few students, faculty and staff members that doubted her knowledge or challenged her expertise. However, she never allowed that to prevent her from doing her job—giving students a new perspective, even if that might make some uncomfortable. Robinson also added that being a minority faculty member always has included the additional role of serving as a resource and supporter for all students, particularly multicultural students.

Robinson also suggested that the College’s recent increase in student diversity will mandate an increase in diversity of faculty and introducing even more perspectives into the curriculum.

Malikarose Abdussalaam, first-year student and Muslim, tends to agree.

“When there’s a minority teacher, they bring different cultural experiences to the table ...With Dr. Robinson, she actually brings African-American culture into the classroom, which I can relate to. I don’t think that if a white teacher tried to introduce topics of African-American culture that I’d be able to relate as easily. I feel like they’d hold back because they’d be afraid to offend. I don’t need my teachers to hold back ... cause the world doesn’t hold back,” Abdussalaam said.

Abdussalaam adds that she wants to see “more minority teachers. It doesn’t necessarily have to be black teachers, just diversity among the faculty.”

“Being here, I expected college to have different types of people who have different mindsets and views, but [students] are just so uneducated about what really happens in the world. So, I don’t feel that here at this institution they’re actually being educated about how the world actually is, getting out of their comfort zones,” Abdussalaam said.
Looking at diversity of the curriculum and faculty as it applies to the liberal arts college experience is just one aspect to consider. The history of the institution, student programming, religious atmosphere, planned actions of the administration and Board of Trustees and students’ own personal concerns about matters of diversity all impact whether or not the student graduated by the College truly receives a liberal arts education. Each of those angles needs to be explored.

“This is not just one article in the newspaper,” Dr. Andy Pratt, dean of the chapel and member of the Board of Trustees’ diversity and inclusion task force, said.