During the current pandemic we are living in, it is easy to see how certain situations seem as if they happened so long ago. But, we shouldn’t forget them. Before the pandemic hit and before all of our classes got moved online, there was a lot going on at Cal Lutheran and students demanding change, as they should. In one of my classes, we talked a lot about the change that we wanted to see in order for Cal Lutheran to do better and be better.
One of our main points was: Diversifying the curriculum.
Is it great that they brought a campus speaker to campus to talk about the situation? Yes. But, in reality, the people who attended this event were people who really wanted to be there. So how can Cal Lutheran reach out to its students, staff, and faculty who actually need to be educated on this?
In previous conversations with my class, we talked a lot about diversifying the curriculum, by specifically looking at the CORE 21 Requirements (the courses you are required to take before you can graduate). Cal Lutheran has a U.S. Diversity fulfillment that students have to take in order to graduate, but it’s just ONE class. That’s it, just one. How can people become educated by just one course?
There are obviously a lot of great courses offered to fulfill this requirement. But there are also courses on this list that do not make sense to be there or some that are on this list, that seem great, but are no longer offered, such as:
- Contemporary Social Issues
- Malcolm X & Martin Luther King
Students should obviously be taught what is right from wrong since a young age, but when it comes to learning more about history and diversity, all institutions, not just Cal Lu, should do better in offering more courses, hiring more faculty of color that equally represent their student population, and having more than just one class fulfill the U.S. Diversity requirement.
