Student Body President Cole Rogers wants to increase Eastern’s diversity requirement by three hours.

The Student Senate will vote tonight to approve or deny a suggestion to the Council for Academic Affairs regarding the increase.

The change would not add credit hours to the graduation requirement, but would instead require six of the already nine needed credits in the humanities section to be culturally aware.

The change would be making a statement to the rest of Illinois universities that Eastern is committed to diversity, Rogers said.

Transfer students

The change could impact transfer students the most if former schools are not aware of newer policies during transfer advising.

Of the 1,096 students who transferred in the fall, 986 were from community colleges and only 255 enrolled at Eastern after earning an Associates Degree, said Rita Pearson, coordinator of transfer relations.

“We are seeing many transfer students coming in without a degree,” Pearson said. “It’s becoming a trend.”

Students who do not transfer in with an associate degree are subject to Eastern requirements, whereas students with the degree are only subject to the university’s foreign language requirement and those within their major.

If approved by the Senate and CAA, the suggestion would be made on behalf of the student body and could be implemented for freshmen and transfer students beginning classes in the Fall 2009 semester.

Some departments on campus are worried about the effect the requirement would have on students.

Peter Andrews, department chair for the mathematics and computer science department, said he would be concerned about transfer students entering his department who may be unaware of the new requirement.

“I’m a little worried about our teacher certification students,” Andrews said. “(They) have about a one class leeway and they would have to be more careful.”

Opposition to the resolution

During last week’s meeting, Student Senate member Ryan Kerch discussed potential problems for math and science majors who may have limited courses suggested by departments for skill-related needs.

“My reasons for not being in full support of this plan aren’t because I don’t think it’s important, or that it necessarily makes it harder for certain students, but because such a plan would actually limit the variety of classes a student can take rather than expand it,” Kerch said. “It’s especially harder for those with majors that recommend or require specific general education classes on top of the university’s requirements.”

Kerch was not the only person to have reservations about the resolution.

The Residence Hall Association was the only registered student organization to oppose the change. They voted 18-16 against it because they were concerned about the university needing to add more class sections and finding faculty to teach additional classes, RHA president Jarrod Scherle said.

Rogers told the Senate last week not to worry about class sizes and faculty arrangement because it is not Student Government’s job to make those decisions.

“My point about it not being Student Government’s job to put in more sections is that, if it is necessary, the CAA will add sections and amount of classes needed,” Rogers said.

Rogers does not believe that additional sections of classes will not be necessary to ensure that students fulfill the requirement.

Gary Foster, chairman of the sociology and anthropology department, agreed with Rogers statement about adding more sections.

“I really don’t think it would (matter),” Foster said. “I’ve raised the question myself before. I asked Cole Rogers if the Student Government knew what percentage of students have six or more credits and they did not know. I suspect that many do.”

Five classes from his department are listed as culturally aware within the Student Government’s resolution. Foster said he’s concerned about which courses are chosen as culturally diverse and why African American studies courses do not meet the cultural diversity requirement.

The university’s catalog defines a culturally aware course as one that has content relating to, “the study of diverse peoples (including issues of race, ethnicity and gender) at home and abroad; the history, traditions and/or language of other countries or cultures; and the role or cultural sensitivity in making informed and ethical decisions.”

Michael Loudon, acting coordinator of the African American studies program, said all classes within his program should be considered culturally aware by the fall of 2009.

He said the university had placed certain African American studies classes into the humanities requirement before a definition of culturally aware was created.

He said the CAA has already approved all classes within African American studies to meet cultural awareness requirements, but it wants to wait until new courses are incorporated into the department before making the decision final.

Rogers said students who would not already meet this requirement by accident should be exposed to diverse cultures to prepare students for the multicultural world that gets smaller every day.

Last week, senate members questioned the effectiveness of one additional class to those who are not culturally aware.

“I don’t think that one more course would serve the need and intent that cultural diversity requires, but it’s better than three hours,” Foster said.

Rick Kambic can be reached at 581-7942 or at rwkambic@eiu.edu.