Spring Break
Faculty 'attack' diversity issues
Kaitlyn Lonkar/Staff Reporter
Issue date: 2/28/07 Section: News
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Mildred Pearson, director of faculty development, agrees with both of the artists but she would make a slight change in the lyrics, if she could.
"If I could rewrite these lyrics I would say I have all my colleagues, students and me," Pearson said. "And the three themes that we are addressing in our workshop are family, respect and global understanding."
Pearson wants Eastern to keep in mind that the faculty, staff and students are family and have some of the same problems as normal families do. The faculty and students come from all over to agree and disagree on certain topics. Along with that come challenges that she knows and strongly believes we can overcome.
"EIU, you are tougher than you know," Pearson said.
To help address her three themes, faculty development hosted a small learning community session on race and ethnicity that brought up conversations that were much needed but difficult for some students to discuss.
The group took advantage of the large turnout that filled the Charleston/Mattoon Room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union. The seven guiding principles were discussed with hopes of making Eastern its surrounding community more diverse.
The most important principle to Pearson was hope and having positive progress on campus.
"There are many positive progresses the university has made such as the different heritage months and students of different races increasing to over 10 percent," said Bonnie Irwin, dean of the Honors College.
Chetel Jordan, a junior public relations major, questioned Eastern's amount of diversity.
"It all depends on the individual point of view," Jordan said. "I do believe that we need to be fostered more in learning about diversity."
Some of the concerns for diversity can stem from race/ethnicity, religion, language, sexual orientation, age or disability. Even though this workshop was mainly about race/ethnicity, the other topics were addressed.
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Viewing Comments 1 - 3 of 3
Jon
posted 2/28/07 @ 2:09 PM CST
"Attendees agreed that there is not much in Charleston in terms of diverse culture."
The above is a very dangerous statement borne out of ignorance. (Continued…)
Selena Johnson
posted 4/14/07 @ 1:33 PM CST
My opinion is that college professors are probably not the best folks to teach about diversity.Yes as a group they are extemely bright and talented, but most tenured professors don'y really circulate much outside of academia, the ivory tower so to speak. (Continued…)
Jon
posted 4/15/07 @ 6:14 PM CST
I think before we can ever talk about "diversity", we need to actually define what type of diversity we're talking about.
If we're talking about cultural diversity, then we need to have questions on the University application that ask about different cultural experiences we've had. (Continued…)
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