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Departmental Objectives for Diversity Learning
The historical and social construction of race, ethnicity, gender and other categories of identity constitute the foundation for ethnic studies. As an interdisciplinary field of study, AES courses include historical analyses in order to provide a nuanced representation of both course content and the ethnic/racial groups studied. Courses emphasize the development of critical thinking skills in relation to theory building by uncovering and examining structural relationships of power and privilege in society. At the same time, coursework addresses individual and collective agency, studying how individuals and groups have organized themselves to resist domination. Students are provided the opportunity to participate in community and civic offices, NGOs, and agencies to work as interns.
The mission of anthropology is to understand our common humanity and different histories, to foster appreciation of our diversity, and to prepare students for living in the multicultural world of today and the future. The majority of the teaching effort is directed toward expanding student's appreciation of cultural differences so they will not fall prey to false, divisive, and hateful racist teachings. The curriculum also aims to explore the range of human situations in the world, ways to live together for the long haul, respect profound differences of outlook while building upon common human values. See http://www.anthro.washington.edu/undergraduate/undergrad_index.htm
While the Applied Physics Laboratory is not an academic unit teaching regular classes, the department has worked collaboratively with or participated in University of Washington programs such as MathDay, GEAR-UP, STAR/BRIDGES, ALVA as well as the NASA Space Grant Program. APL has a strong commitment to furthering diversity in the ranks of future scientists and engineers.
Biological Sciences
The Departments of Biology, Botany, and Zoology (Biological Sciences) have several components of their bioscience curriculum that responds to the University's diversity learning goals. Curricula emphasize how scientific research, like all human endeavors, benefits from the contributions of diverse individuals. Biological Sciences majors are required to take at least 5 courses with laboratory/field study components; in these lab groups, students are required to interact and engage the course material in ways that promote collaboration across ethnic/racial lines. The independent research option provides students the opportunity to interact with individuals of varying training levels as well as diverse scientific approaches, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds in the laboratory.
For the Department of Comparative Literature, student understanding of multicultural issues and topics such as ethnicity, race and class is believed to be deeply enhanced when these issues are examined both outside the United States, as well as within it. Therefore, the department's orientation toward diversity focuses primarily upon its international dimensions. There are presently two tracks that make up the curricula of Comparative Literature Department: literary studies and cinema studies. The department currently requires students in the literary track to take at least one core course outside European literature. Curriculum for the Cinema studies students encourages a broadening of student perspectives outside of the US. In addition, cinema studies students are also required to gain mid-level proficiency in a foreign language which is essential in acquiring a sense for the culture behind the films they view.
Central to the curricula of French and Italian Studies is an exploration of the ways in which American society-like others around the globe-is challenged by and copes with tensions related to gender, race, and class. Currently, these departments offer a variety of courses that deal with gender-related issues in French and Italian literature and culture. In addition, one course is offered in the Francophonie field, which investigates the literature and culture of mainly Africa, the Caribbean, and Indochina-all societies impacted by French colonialism.
Medicine, School of
Nursing, School of
The UW School of Nursing envisions "unity-in-diversity" as a means by which it can implement and practice diversity and cultural awareness in its curricula. The school continues an emphasis on cultural competency as a student learning outcome. For example, all three degree programs offered-the BSN, the MN, and the PhD-require that students demonstrate cultural sensitivity, utilize knowledge and skills in professional practice among diverse and multi-cultural populations, and exhibit informed perspectives regarding social, cultural, and political issues related to their area of scholarship, respectively.
UW's School of Pharmacy encourages their students to develop an ability to place health care and professional issues within appropriate historical, cultural, social, economic, scientific, political, and philosophical frameworks, as well as to demonstrate sensitivity and tolerance within a culturally diverse society. Two curricular areas of importance are the biological-where pharmacists identify gender and ethnicity as necessary components of drug disposition-and the psychosocial-where the pharmacist must be able to provide culturally relevant pharmaceutical care.
The knowledge that is valued in philosophy is the ability to critically examine key normative principles that serve as a basis for the kind of practical reason that results in action, not simply a conclusion. Curricula in the Department of Philosophy tackles relevant issues including affirmative action, policies of remediation, real versus formal equal opportunity, and the underlying similarities and differences between racism and sexism. Lower as well as upper division courses explore race theory, feminist theory, and issues in gender and science. Other courses that take up issues of social justice, human rights, and the nature of legitimate political authority also contribute to the kind of practical knowledge that students should have in relating to our diverse United States.
Political Science
Much of the curricula in the Department of Political Science touches on or even centrally focuses on gender, race, ethnicity, nationality as well as cultural and economic diversity. In addition to the obvious international dimensions in comparative politics and international relations, some of the courses in Political Science specifically explore the global variety in conceptions of race, ethnicity, and culture; diverse forms of cultural, racial, ethnic and gender oppression; and the diversity in political responses to such practices. Department faculty and other curriculum producers believe that exposure to issues of diversity is the first necessary condition for preparing students for successful citizenship in diverse societies.
The Department of Rehabilitation Medicine is a clinical department where physicians and professionals in the allied health sciences such as Physical therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Prosthetics/Orthotics are trained. Therefore, curricular emphasize is placed upon the relationship between the professional and the public s/he services. Textbooks used by faculty and students alike in both undergraduate and graduate curricula emphasize: recognizing ethnic factors that play a role in disease; understanding culture as a conceptual basis for further understanding human experience and behaviors; understanding the principles of culture sensitive care and identifying barriers to culture sensitive care; and learning how to access information regarding the role of ethnicity and disease, such as "ethno medecine."
All courses offered by Women Studies critically address diversity, and especially the intersections of gender, race, class, nation and nationhood, and sexuality. A strong emphasis is placed on critical thinking as it relates to questions of institutional and structural inequalities. Pedagogy emphasizes collaborative learning so that faculty and students work together to create and disseminate knowledge. The study of feminist scholarship in both disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives provides students with frameworks for teaching and writing about the complexities of diversity. See http://depts.washington.edu/webwomen.