Faculty meeting discusses in-class discrimination

In an effort to increase awareness of discrimination by faculty members in the classroom, attendees of the Arts, Sciences and Engineering (AS&E) faculty meeting last week participated in a "Discussion of Race and Diversity Issues in Students' Academic Experience."

The faculty examined several case studies, which have been compiled over the past eight years by Jean Wu of the AS&E Office of Diversity Education and Development.

Some of the common concerns students have about the faculty include, according to Wu, faculty who express assumptions about students based on racial or ethnic stereotypes, faculty who avoid contact with students because of racial or ethnic heritage, and faculty who fail to deal effectively with racially-charged issues and discussions in the classroom.

In order to protect confidentiality, the gender of students and faculty, as well as the names of the departments were changed.

The workshop on Feb. 5 was "focused on assisting faculty to be effective teachers in diverse classrooms," Wu said.

The workshop aimed to inform attendees about possible discrimination, in order raise awareness, said Kathleen Camara, a member of the AS&E Faculty Executive Committee and one of the presenters at the meeting. "We hope that by raising the consciousness of our faculty to these concerns that we will be working toward the creation of a safe, respectful and thoughtful learning environment for all our students, as well as for the larger community at Tufts," she said.

One African American student felt that while no racial tensions are present in the classroom, awareness of the different ethnic and racial groups is noticeable. The student, who chose to remain anonymous, said that an African American professor will often make an effort not to single out or favor African American students while another professor may make a special effort to include them in discussions.

Such situations understandably affect students' ability to focus and perform well in class and even in their everyday lives, Wu said.

Some students have not noticed any type of discrimination. "I do not feel like there is any discrimination in my classes... Though most of my classes are not extremely diversified, there seems to be no prejudice, and the relations between professors and students are largely positive," freshman Nancy Chen said.

Faculty at the meeting proposed several solutions to the problem of in-class faculty discrimination.

Proposals included offering additional workshops on teaching and advising diverse student populations and requiring departments to devote at least one meeting each year to discussions about issues related to race and ethnicity. Faculty also recommended including an item on the annual faculty activity reports on how they have responded to the interests and needs of a diverse student population in their curriculum.

Revising the questions on course evaluation forms to more explicitly solicit feedback from students on the inclusion of course materials reflecting the diversity of the student populations was also proposed.

According to Gary Goldstein, the chairman of the AS&E Faculty Executive Committee, the meeting was a positive experience and there was a lot of agreement among faculty, as well as a lot of positive discussion on proposed actions. The faculty expressed both concern and surprise about the cases and general trends presented.

Summaries of the discussions that took place and the recommendations that were suggested will be passed on to the Executive Committee, Camara said. Once compiled, the recommendations will be reviewed by the committee and work will begin to implement the suggestions through faculty communities and administrative support, she said.