Inter/Intra Group Relations

Faculty/Student Forums

SPELMAN COLLEGE

The faculty-student teams met monthly to engage in discussions about a specific topic relating to diversity. Teams prepared for these forums by reading articles and excerpts from books that were selected and disseminated by the project coordinators and director prior to the meetings. The forums, two-three hours in length during late afternoons at 4:00 or 6:00 p.m., had a seminar format with either a consultant or project staff facilitating the discussion.

In February 1994, the project began with faculty teams introducing themselves, describing their proposals, and outlining how they wished to transform their courses with respect to multiculturalism. Many but not all faculty believed they were currently incorporating some material on multiculturalism in their courses. but wanted the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of how being more sensitive about diversity issues and new pedagogies would enhance their teaching and research.

In order to ensure that project participants would proceed from a common starting point, the theme for the second (March) forum was "Multiculturalism in the Liberal Arts Curriculum," which was facilitated by Professor Theophilus Smith, a member of Emory University's Department of Religion and author of Conjuring Culture. Dr. Smith has been a major force in Emory's effort to incorporate multiculturalism into their curriculum. He also shared the syllabus for his course "Selected Texts/Topics in Afro-American Studies: Socrates and King in Jail," as a model for an interdisciplinary approach to multiculturalism and ethics. Smith's syllabus was innovative in its pairing of "classic" philosophical texts with readings on race, religion, and cultural diversity.

Faculty/student team members prepared for our April meeting on "Disability As Difference" by reading a wide range of articles about disability, race and gender. We invited several physically challenged Spelman students and the Coordinator of Disability Services to this forum so that our discussion would address how the College could become more sensitive to people with disabilities. The consultant for this forum was a young Black woman who teaches reading at a southern Florida university. Her HealthQuest article "What's a Leg Got to Do With It?" illustrated the intersection of race, gender disability in a compelling manner, and addressed specifically how having her left leg amputated challenged her sense of self-esteem. In this forum Ms. Walton discussed cultural attitudes towards the disabled and led the participants in exercises designed to sensitize able-bodied people about the everyday lives of the physically challenged.

A group of Spelman students who were disabled in a variety of ways described their experiences and discussed the availability of resources for them on campus. One student who is learning-disabled and speech impaired admitted that she envied blind students because, "Blind people get everything! You have Braille books, books on tape, special dogs -- to me it looks like the whole world is set up for blind people and if you have any other disability, you get nothing." Her perspective enable team members to gain fresh insight into the complexities of physical and mental disabilities.

In a second April meeting, Dr. Yvonne Williams, former provost of Wooster College, discussed her efforts to develop diversity awareness in the Wooster College curriculum and throughout student services on campus. Dr. Williams chose to concentrate her energies on the college's First Year Seminar since it was required for all entering students. The theme of the seminar in 1990 was "Difference, Power and discrimination: Perspectives on Race, Gender, Class and Culture." Participants reviewed Williams' bibliography and discussed the pitfalls and politics of making multiculturalism mandatory for students.

During the month of May, participants agreed to continue reading from large packets of materials on multiculturalism. When faculty/student teams reconvened in September 1994, they began a three part series on "Sexuality As Difference." With funds from the instructional supply budget, "Gays and Lesbians in the 'Hood," a film about homosexuality and homophobia in African American culture, was purchased. Team members viewed the film and discussed it with consultant Angela Bowen, an openly gay African American woman completing a doctorate in Women's Studies. Bowen began her discussion with an autobiographical narrative, them proceeded with an analysis of her research on gay civil rights activists Bayard Ruskin, and her activism (following break-up of her marriage) within the African American lesbian community. She described her experiences as a lesbian within the context of culture, traditions, and attitudes within the African American community. She then directed the group in a role-playing exercise designed to increase sensitivity to homophobia.

The Lesbian-Bisexual Student Alliance at Spelman also participated in this forum by describing the kinds of intolerance they experienced in their dormitories and classrooms on campus. One lesbian student related a painful story of how isolated she felt in her dormitory because her peers were actually afraid of her because they knew about her sexual orientation. Eventually no one in her dorm would speak to or make eye contact with her. When she complained to the residence director, an emergency meeting was called to address the issue. Fortunately, once she was given an opportunity to communicate how hurt she was by this treatment, other students apologized to her and situation gradually improved. As was the case with the presence of disabled students, participants were greatly impacted by these stories about aspects of the Spelman environment with which they were unfamiliar. In each case, the consensus was that in the absence of the grant, it was highly probable that the degree of intolerance on campus with respect to diversity issues would have remained unknown and unexplored.

In a second meeting on "Sexuality and Pedagogy" held in October, team members discussed Angela Bowen's presentation and how the reading materials on sexuality could be incorporated into their courses. Faculty members in the social sciences were curious about how sexuality could be included in courses on economics or political science. Other faculty and students were helpful in suggesting how legal issues relating to health benefits, for example, are related to cultural stereotypes about sexuality.

Project participants were also conscious about how religion is often used to justify certain kinds of intolerant behavior in the classroom. Excerpts from the book Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality were used in this discussion to explore how homophobia and religion are intertwined in conversations about sexuality.

The group welcomed Dr. Thee Smith back in a November meeting on "Religious Diversity" during which he used the essay "Beyond Plurality" by John Cobb to frame his discussion about the role of religion in diversity discourses. The group divided into smaller groups to address how organized religion shaped their perceptions or people outside of their particular faiths. Student representatives from Spelman's Muslim, Christian, and B'ahi organizations also participated in this lively discussion. Muslim students, in particular, felt that Spelman's historical tie to Christianity sometimes alienated them from the mainstream community at the College. They indicated that at formal gatherings like convocation and graduation, the audience is assumed to be Christian and expected to bow their heads when Biblical prayers are offered. To increase awareness about their religion, Muslim students suggested that the college calendar include their Holy Days so that others would know when they were fasting for Ramadan or observing other religious occasions. Students from the B'ahi group spoke passionately about how their religion had a long standing history of embracing racial, ethnic, and religious difference. At the conclusion of the forum we explored strategies for making the Spelman community more tolerant of religious diversity in the classroom and beyond.

In the December meeting, consultant Dr. Geeta Patel from Wellesley College's women's studies program, analyzed various scholarly approaches to sexuality in her presentation on "queer theory." She also discussed her new course, "Cross Cultural Sexualities," which she is teaching for the first time at Wellesley. The course relies heavily on the writings about sexuality by French theorist Michel Foucalt. She encouraged faculty to become more familiar with theories of sexuality so that students will understand the broader implications of how and why sexuality is relevant to human development in all cultural contexts. Patel's background as an East Indian woman living in the United States also enabled her to contextualize her discussion about how attitudes and perceptions of sexuality vary from culture to culture. She was also able to discuss from a scholarly and personal perspective the wearing of the veil by many East Indian women and how her consciousness as a feminist affected her attitude about veiling.

The team members read and discussed with her the controversial East Indian short story, "The Quilt," which raised issues about how different cultures interpret same-sex relationships. Most team members were very surprised to learn that categories of gender sexuality in this country could be interpreted quite differently in another cultural context.

We used our January meeting as a wrap-up session in order to evaluate the year's activities and make plans for the second year. This was the first time the group had met without an outside consultant since the project began in February, so it provided an opportunity to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the project. In this meeting team members had a very candid discussion about how they felt the project was progressing and what their goals were for the upcoming year. A suggestion was made that members might benefit from more interaction with each other by focusing more fully on how faculty could begin to use the information they had been exposed to in order to transform their courses. We agreed that at the next several meetings, one or two faculty teams would present a syllabus to the group that they wanted to revise, in order to get feedback and suggestions.

Some faculty members had already begun to incorporate the materials from forum discussions into their courses. A professor of French discussed how gender issues were handled in her course, since gender is affected by language. A professor of economics indicated that she had incorporated more material about women staring their own businesses in her introductory course on economic development. She also found that she had developed an interest in the role of religion in economic development and looked forward to expanding her course to include this new material.

At this meeting, faculty members also had the opportunity to address the role that student members played in their course revisions. Several faculty members indicated that student researchers had helped them to compile bibliography and construct course models. The students expressed tremendous enthusiasm for the project, citing instances where they had used what they learned either in the classroom or in conversations with other students informally. They were also grateful for the opportunity to have a unique interaction with faculty members and hear from other students whose experiences were quite different from their own. One student pointed out that this was the first time she felt that she was taking an active role in her education. "Instead of just going to class and taking notes, I feel like I have some input into how that class develops over the semester; now I'm more conscious about what I put into class."

Project staff have also become active participants in off-campus diversity projects. These include the Ford-funded Campus Leadership and American Pluralism project (July 1994) sponsored by "American Commitments: Diversity, Democracy and Liberal Learning," a national initiative of The Association of American Colleges & Universities. We also participated in the Ford Foundation Campus Diversity Initiative Working Conference held in Tucson, Arizona in October 1994.

As a result of this past year's activities, serious efforts are underway on campus to transform our curriculum with respect to cultural diversity. We have also empowered a cadre of faculty across departments with varying disciplinary perspectives to continue on an individual and departmental level to engage in significant work to bring about more inclusive curriculum on the Spelman campus. A unique aspect of this project is the participation of students who are engaged along with faculty, in a process that will enhance their knowledge about a variety of diversity issues and hopefully enable them to be more sensitive about the reality of difference and its impact in various cultural contexts.

We are looking forward to the second year of the project during which we will engage faculty from a number of historically Black colleges in a significant effort to bring about a more inclusive curriculum in institutional contexts where issues of diversity have not been explored in a sustained manner.