Publications:
GTP Handbook / The Tutor / National Teaching and Learning Forum
The Tutor - Vol. 6, No. 1, 1991
Myths and Realities:
Administrators and Faculty Address the Dearth of Minority Graduate Students at CU-Boulderby Laura L.B. Border
"There is no one true American culture, but many American cultures reflecting the heritage of the many peoples who make up this racially and ethnically diverse society. To function and prosper in this society, we all need to be multicultural." - Evelyn Hu-DeHart
Even though the united states is conglomerate of many different cultures in the eyes of non-Americans we are simply Americans, and regardless of our heritage, are immediately identified as such when traveling abroad. We don't just share a large land mass. We share and enjoy the basics. And, in the united states the basics are multicultural. What would we do on Friday evenings if there were no Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Italian, or Greek restaurants? No rhythm and blues night clubs? No French fashions, no St. Patrick's Day no German beer?
Yet in spite of the obvious delight we take in our multicultural heritage diversity continues to be seen as a goal to be attained rather than as a reality in many of our institutions of higher education. One goal of multicultural education is to give all students equal access to higher education is to give al students equal access to higher education. A more recently formulated goal is to transform institutions so that our curricula, our faculty, and our undergraduate and graduate students are representative of the rich tapestry of American culture.
During the past five years, graduate programs at cu-Boulder have seen a small but steady increase in minority Boulder have seen a small but steady increase in minority students- from 6.1% in 1985 to 7.6% in 1990. These percentages fall far below the national representation of minority in the United states population. Similarly, minority teaching assistants (TAs) and minority part-time instructors (GPTIs) represent less than two percent of all graduate teachers.
On the Boulder campus, the administration and the faculty are taking steps in increase the enrollment of minority graduate students and to provide them with financial support through fellowships, teaching assistantships and research assistantship. They are also making the campus academic and social environment more supportive of ethnic and cultural diversity.
The Tutor interviewed campus administrators regarding the training of graduate teachers to identify crucial issues and frame options to remedy the present situation. The following statements by Chancellor James N.Corbridge, Associate Vice Chancellor Albert Ramirez, and Professor Evelyn Hu-Dehart emphasize the importance placed on the recruitment and retention of minority graduate teacher by the CU-Boulder Administration.
Chancellor James N. Corbridge
Chancellor James N. Corbridge, also a professor of law, is a staunch supporter of diversity on the Boulder Campus. Four years ago, Chancellor Corbridge established the Chancellors Advisory Committee on Minority Affairs (CACMA) to advise him on campus policies and practices related to minority faculty, staff, and students. CACMA submitted number of recommendations aimed at improving the recruitment and retention of minority graduate students. Chancellor Corbridge comments on multicultural education on CU-Boulder campus.
The quest the multicultural education involves two issues: Planning a comprehensive curriculum and training teachers. If you want to get down to where the rubber meet the road what students see in addition to the style of teaching when they watch a teacher is not how many contracts and grants she/he has been awarded, but the lesson plan. If pluralism doesn't enter the lesson plan, it is not likely to enter our students minds. With thoughtful training we can educator graduates to meet the challenges of pluralsim-infact we can make a pretty good dent in the problem of celebrating cultural diversity.
We cannot inspire respect from minorities and women unless our offerings include contributions from all the minority cultures in American life. It's one thing to be able to weave issues into the classroom; its another to really integrate them into the system. Today our curriculum offers are Eurocentric with few exceptions. The mass of our teaching faculty were educated in the Eurocentric tradition; old faculty are a product of it. Few faculty have the sensitivities necessary to provide pluralistic curriculum. Our challenge is to offer the best education possible and to optimize the prospects of all students in the classroom. Arts and Sciences has taken the first steps toward expanded requirements. We're trying to get other schools and colleges to rethink their educational offers to include pluralism. Several individuals on campus have given a lot of though to the issue: Evelynhu-Dehart and Manning Marable of the Center for Studies of Ethnicity and Race in America, Dean Charles Middleman of Arts & Sciences, and Jack Kelso, professor of anthropology and Director of the Honor's Program. Other faculty have made heroic individual efforts in their own courses and have show a willingness to their colleagues.
When I applied for my first teaching job, with a new doctorate in hand, the dean did not ask me if I had any teaching experience. A Ph.D was enough. But this old assumption-if you have the Ph.D, you must be able to teach-is a myth of the past. We need to nurture and train our graduate students to become the pluralistic professorate of the future.
Graduate assistants teach mainly at the lower levels of the University where students need the best teaching available. We view as high priority helping graduate teaching assistants deliver quality education in our undergraduate courses. By concentrating on graduate teachers, we can imbue the system with people who recognize and celebrate the contributions of minority students and women. We can also show all teacher show to incorporate these issues into their lesson plans.
Associate Vice Chancellor Albert Ramirez
Associate Vice Chancellor for Faculty Affairs, Al Rameriez, also a professor of psychology, has served as an Associate Dean of the Graduate school and is active on the chancellors Minority Affairs Committee. He initiated and developed the IMPART (implementation of Multicultural Perspectives and Approaches in Research and Teaching) and works with faculty in the Special Opportunity Program for faculty recruitment. Associate Vice Chancellor Rameriez defines the commitments a university must make to product plurality faculty.
I've been involved with plurality (minority) faculty recruitment for the last four years. Recruiting at the faculty level pinpoints the pressing need to encourage the enrollment of ethnic plurality graduate students. If minority graduate students are not coming out of the graduate schools, they obviously will not be available to hire as faculty members.
Universities across the country need to be involved in producing the very product that we want. It's our own fault if the product isn't there; the quest for all subsequent levels of the educational pipeline must be to focus on the preceding levels. We should be asking what is our Graduate School doing to encourage minority enrollment and what are we doing on the undergraduate level to product the minority graduate students we need?
First, we look at the fellowships available for plurality student in particular and all students in general. Sources of support need to be examined at the university, state, and federal levels. We need to focus on other kinds of support as well. Plurality graduate students need access to the common forms of support for graduate study, such as common forms of support for graduate study, such as teaching assistantships help graduate students learn to be teaches, and research assistantships to plurality students.
Second, departments need to commit to long-term funding for minority students. Students often receive protected-class fellowships for a year or two, yet don't receive support for the remainder of their program. If departments accept a student on a protected-class fellowship, they should be committed to coming up with tow or more years of support so that they student can complete a graduate degree.
Third, mentoring should be offered for all graduate students. Graduate students need to be involved with faculty in a one-on-one learning and mentoring experience.
Fourth, we need to examine the resources available for graduate plurality students to conduct research and to produce scholarship that is outside the mainstream of their discipline. For example, research in American literature should include work on Black, Chicano, Native American and Asian-American writers.
Finally we need to get away from the perception that these students were admitted only because they were plurality students and that some lowering of criteria must have been involved. Faculty need to be aware of their perceptions of plurality graduate students and of each students perception of self in the unite. Each person need to feel that his/her presence in the unit is just as valid as any other individuals. We must not convey negative messages to our students.
If we provide financial and personal support, ensure training through mentioning and assistantships, broaden course content to include new forms of scholarship, and improve everyone's perceptions, we will produce an avant-garde generation of plurality faculty.
Professor Evelyn Hu-DeHart
Professor Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Director of the Center for Studies of Ethnicity and Race is also a professor of history whose field is Latin American/Caribbean History. She has published two books on Yaqui Indians of northern Mexico and southwestern Untied States and is currently working on the Asian Diaspora in Latin American and Caribbean. Professor Hu-DeHart has conducted research on nineteenth-century slave labor in Peru and Cuba. In this issue of the Tutor, she discusses the need to integrate issues of race and ethnicity into the curricula and into teaching.
We at the Center for Studies of Ethnicity and Race in American provide a framework for teaching and conducting research on peoples of color in the United States, as will as addressing global and comparative issues of race and ethnicity. Created in 1987, CSERA brought together existing programs in Black Studies and Chicano Studies, and added new programs in American Indian and Asian American Studies. The Center boast a distinguished core faculty of outstanding teachers, and productive and innovative scholars who actively serve the minority communities locally and nationally.
We are also an important advocate of graduate students of color already on campus. We have launched an ambitious program of recruiting and training additional graduate students interested in perusing research and teaching career in the four major ethnic studies fields.
As a minority faculty member and Director of CSERA, I am concerned about the dearth of minority graduate teachers on the campus and the need for additional training of current graduate teachers so that they will function more effectively in an increasingly multicultural environments. I advocate hiring prominent faculty of color and providing minority students with steady financial support. The university has made a serious commitment to this goal and has taken some concrete steps toward its fulfillment.
I am concerned about the train of all graduate students who teach. Graduate teachers need to be nurtured and developed as future academic leaders in a society that is increasingly made up of people from non-European back-grounds. This means that issues of race and ethnicity should be integrated into the training of graduate teachers, and regardless of their discipline and field, graduate students should be strongly encouraged to take workshops that deal with these issues. Furthermore, in writing dissertations and designing courses, a serious attempt must be made to integrate race, class, gender perspectives when ever possible.
The Tutor Comments
At CU-Boulder and graduate institutions nationwide, administrators an faculty members are concerned about the lack of minority graduate students. The demographics of the student body are seldom representative of the national population as a whole, and course work does not often reflect multicultural viewpoints. To encourage minority students to attend graduate school, universities are including issues of ethnicity and race in their curricula and their workshops. The Graduate Teacher Program has provided training in gender, multicultural, and equity issues in the class room to teaching Assistants and graduate part-time Instructors since 1985. More than 1000 graduate teachers have participated.
With the expected shortfall of Ph.D graduates in the Untied States during the next ten years, minority graduate students will find plentiful employment opportunities. On University faculties, as well as in industry and government; in turn, they will enrich the cultures of the organizaiotns that employ them.
American Universities have come a long way form the days of segregation and mandated integration. As institutions of higher education embrace diversity and as their studen bodies change to more nearly reflect the plurality of the national population, the need for special student and faculty recruitment programs will lessen. Educators look forward to the day when higher education in the United States will be inter cultural; the Administration and faculty at CU-Boulder are working to ensure that this vision becomes a reality.
