COMMITTEE FOR MULTICULTURAL CURRICULUM TRANSFORMATION
Notes from Meeting of
17 November 2009
The third meeting of the committee for multicultural curriculum transformation was held on
Tuesday, 17 November 2009, at 10:00 a.m. in Altgeld 203.
Attendance
Sally Conklin, Bill Goldenberg, Laverne Gyant, Robin Moremen, Judy Santacaterina,
Diana Swanson, Murali Krishnamurthi, Liping Guo
Announcements
NCORE conference is being held June 1 through June 5 in Maryland.
Minutes
October 20, 2009 Minuets approved after changes which include: changing of wording in 3rd
paragraph to refer to ‘higher’ positions as ‘broader’, or ‘supervisory’.
Fall Presentations
Overall, the presentations were great, and many courses have been transformed. Summary
of suggestions included: more ideas to open a course to LGBT, lack of role model in
children lead to poor demographics in courses, discussion of addressing the issue to younger
age groups, more information on disability and lesser known populations. Suggestions for to
aid the process of the presentations included: directions for uploading to blackboard, more
AV needs addressed when reserving rooms, and suggestions for better attendance.
Institute Surveys
Suggestions were made to change the surveys into data that can be used as an assessment.
In the past, a 5 year retrospective study was completed to see how many students were
impacted by the institute; these were broken down by college and general education courses.
Dialog included: A proposal was discussed to include an in-depth study. Suggestions
included: getting student feedback on a beginning of course evaluation and a post-course
follow-up evaluation. These evaluations could include a students’ educational level on
multiculturalism and give the student an opportunity for feedback. A decision was made to
have a proposal to the provost by the end of the spring 2010 semester.
Discussion of MCT Institute 2010
The committee discussed the impact certain changes have made on the institute. These
include: because of the shortening of the institute, less time is spent discussing physical
disabilities. Suggestions included: offering a higher stipend for faculty involvement. It was
also discussed that if moving to a 7-day institute might lose people due to the time
commitment, and budgeting may be a big issue next year.
The populations of multiculturalism included in the institute are changed frequently by our
changing culture. It was discussed to include some of these different issues into the institute.
Suggestions included: students in the armed forces, foster children, laid-off adults, and
mental illness, ADHD, autism, and dyslexia. Students in the armed forces dialog included:
returning with disabilities, shows a desire to be included in teaching syllabi, PTSD, and
gender issues. There was a comment that many students have emotional eruptions within
the classroom, and teachers may have difficulty handling the situation. In order to address
these issues suggestions included: people/facilitators from CAAR office, student panel
which includes a more diverse population, and include faculty members from these
populations, and creating a second student panel.
Specific changes that can be made to the institute to address these issues were made.
Suggestions included: include social class and disability in one day or session, eliminate social
class but integrate it into other dimensions of the institute, issues of disability may be more
useful than religion, religion is hard to include all types into a short session, the institute
needs to reflect the trends in society and NIU community.
Impact of transformation was also discussed. This included: little to no transformation in
courses have been based on religion, how have courses actually been transformed?
There were also a few issue raised about changes which included: attendance at some of the
workshops and sessions conflict with teaching schedules, other types of presenters are
preferred over the CAAR office.
Suggestions for the next meeting
Go over the reports and pre/post surveys and think about 2 or 3 things to do or change for
the future. The meeting could be separated into subcommittee work with one for the
institute and one for the proposal. Suggestions include: meeting 30 minuets generally, and
then breaking into 2 groups. Concerns include: not everyone has the experience to separate,
and this loses the ability to learn entirely from each other.
Needs to be discussed further: NCOR: committee could send a representative to report back
to the committee, this could possibly be funded by the Institute budget since it is every other
year.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:53 a.m. The next meeting is scheduled for 19 January,
2010 from 10:00-11:30 in Altgeld 203.