Administrators are starting to evaluate the campus climate at Cal Poly, which could add more cultural awareness and make students from different backgrounds feel more comfortable.
Kayla Missman
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Cal Poly isn’t known for its diversity.
But psychology professor Jennifer Teramoto Pedrotti says cultural awareness in classes can make students from different backgrounds feel more welcome. Now, the university is looking to boost the level of “cultural competency” in its existing curriculum.
To improve cultural awareness, Cal Poly needs to evaluate curriculum and work on a broader approach to students’ education, said Annie Holmes, executive director for the Office of University Diversity and Inclusivity.
“I think we can do more at Cal Poly to engage all students throughout their tenure at the university with an understanding and appreciation and value and respect for diversity,” Holmes said. “We can take a look at the holistic experience of students — what happens in the classroom as well as the co-curricular.”
Adding cultural classes would help students feel more welcome and could help prevent incidents such as the unofficially themed “Colonial Bros and Nava-hos” party that led to international criticism of Cal Poly, Teramoto Pedrotti said.
“When incidents like that occur, it really gives us an opportunity to take a look at what’s going on and make sure the education is there for students so they can develop appropriate awareness and not make mistakes like that,” Teramoto Pedrotti said.
But discussions about including diversity in classes have been in the works for a while — long before the “Nava-hos incident,” Holmes said.
Holmes said there probably won’t be a push for more cultural classes, but for cultural competency skills to be integrated into more classes. For example, if it’s an economics course, professors could include more cultural and ethnic examples and ways of thinking to widen students’ perspectives.
“It needs to be different from a Euro perspective, to integrate diversity into all the coursework,” Holmes said. “There’s going to need to be a lot of work done through the different programs that are set up — programs and planning, the Academic Senate. There’s work that needs to be done to take and assess the entire curriculum.”
One way to quantify cultural competency in classes are the diversity learning objectives. The diversity objectives look at the goals and outcomes of Cal Poly’s overall curriculum and require certain skills for students to have learned by the time they graduate. Among those objectives are being able to “consider perspectives of diverse groups when making decisions” and “function as members of society and as professionals with people who have ideas, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that are different from their own,” according to Cal Poly’s website.
In addition to the diversity learning objectives, Cal Poly also enforces the United States Cultural Pluralism (USCP) requirement.
“The university started the U.S. Cultural Pluralism requirement to give every student an opportunity and a requirement to take a class that would expose them to more diverse perspectives, in the hope that it would help them out in their career field,” Cross Cultural Centers assistant director Erin Echols said. “It’s really trying to take their education to the next level.”
But the USCP requirement might not be the best method — during an open forum following the party, students recommended the requirement be reviewed and strengthened, said Que Dang, a Cross Cultural Centers assistant coordinator who works with the MultiCultural Center.
Some USCP courses are more effective than others, Echols said. Classes that incorporate community-based learning, such as doing service in the San Luis Obispo area, are more effective, she said.
Echols said students could get a better cultural education if the USCP classes were lower-level. If they are 300- and 400-level courses, students won’t take them until at least their junior year, which means they aren’t able to use that knowledge during their time at Cal Poly, she said.
It’s also difficult to incorporate new classes because adding a course also takes approximately two years, Echols said. And professors teaching these courses might not be experts in the field.
There are, however, classes that are incorporating diverse perspectives without being held to the requirement, Echols said. She is in contact with more than 100 professors who have woven some aspect of diversity into their courses, not all of which are listed as USCP classes.
“There are some really positive directions that are in the works right now, so I’m excited to see where it goes,” Echols said.
One class at Cal Poly that aims to teach diversity understanding is the intergroup dialogue course, which will be taught for the second time in spring quarter.
The class is split into groups. Half of each group identifies by race, gender or other factors a certain way, and the other half identifies a different way.
During the class’ inception, there were three groups. Each one had approximately 16 students: Two were mixed groups where approximately half the students identified as people of color and the rest identified as white. The third group was comprised of students who all identified as white, which was called an “intragroup dialogue” instead.
Student facilitators, who are currently being trained, oversee the groups.
The goal is increased multicultural competence and awareness between people who don’t have the same social identities, said Teramoto Pedrotti, the psychology professor who will be facilitating the course next quarter.
“The point of these is to be able to (have a) dialogue, as opposed to debate or fight or anything like that, about different worldviews that may come partially as a function of different social identities that we belong to,” Teramoto Pedrotti said.
The number of sections offered depends on funding. Thankfully, Teramoto Pedrotti said, College of Liberal Arts Dean Doug Epperson has agreed to fund the course for this year. As more funding becomes available, they might be able to expand the class.
A course like this is necessary at any college, and it’s something that students are very interested in, Teramoto Pedrotti said.
“I think today, students are really looking to be able to communicate effectively across groups, even if someone’s different from them,” she said. “They like to explore some of their own personal facets too, regardless of what cultural background they’re coming from.”
Cultural education should go beyond the classroom experience, though, Holmes said. She believes Cal Poly should ensure all students have an opportunity to engage in the dialogue about diversity, and instruction should happen in student organizations, Campus Dining, the residence halls and wherever else students can talk about their experiences.