Diversity
Proposal for the Establishment of Diversity Action Teams - January 2007
Publications, both popular and professional, and other news sources are filled with information about diversity and multiculturalism here in the United States as well as internationally. The need for educators to appreciate and understand the complexities associated with diversity has never been greater. The College of Education is committed to diversity, helping our candidates, faculty and staff understand the issues from local and global perspectives.
The college has an established campus reputation as a leader in multicultural education. The multicultural initiative was formally launched in the college in 1993 when Dean Alphonse Buccino established multicultural education as one of three “primary agendas” for the College of Education. During the 1993-1994 academic year, the college established a college-wide initiative in multicultural education and established a Multicultural Task Force (MCTF) for education. The MCTF worked for over 10 years to lead efforts in the college related to multicultural education, ranging from seminars to mini-grants to support multicultural research to a local conference related to multicultural and diversity issues. Other colleges on campus have looked to the multicultural education initiative established by the college as a model for their own efforts. The current Dean's Council on Diversity (DCOD), an evolution of the MCTF, continues to help facilitate and lead multicultural and diversity initiatives in the college.In the last decade, the college has continued to extend the commitment to diversity through a variety of activities and initiatives, including an enhanced curriculum to address diversity needs, expanding our research efforts in the area of diversity and multiculturalism, increased service activities related to diversity, and administrative commitment to diversity in policies and procedures in the college. This level of commitment reflects the multicultural education mission statement, which specifies that the college's instruction, research, service and administration all share a role in fulfilling the goals of diversity in the college. The College of Education is committed to making itself more diverse by developing programs, practices, and policies that enable candidates, faculty, and staff to lead productive lives in a diverse context and to effectively educate students from various sociocultural backgrounds.
Curriculum.Department efforts at the undergraduate and graduate levels have enhanced our diversity curriculum for initial and advanced candidates. There are many courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels enable candidates to focus on issues related to diversity. These courses are aligned with college-wide diversity plans. Each department created diversity plans in 1999. These plans provide information on department-level courses and experiences for candidates specifically in regards to diversity experiences, in class as well as in the field. Diversity plans were reviewed and approved by the College's Curriculum Committee. While the university intended to initiate a similar effort in the fall of 1998, it was not until the fall of 2002 that the university was able to officially implement the Cultural Diversity Requirement at the undergraduate level. With the College of Education plans in place at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, the college has served as a resource for others on campus.Recruitment and Retention. The college administration is committed to increasing the number of minority faculty. Minority faculty account for 17.9% of the total full time college faculty, compared with a university-wide minority presence of 14.8%. Further, nearly half of the minority faculty are tenured and hold the rank of full or associate professor.
The administration has also worked aggressively to retain faculty of color. The multicultural education initiative is a positive influence on the retention of faculty of color. Additionally, the college has established a number of centers and sponsored a number of projects specifically focused on underserved populations (e.g., CLASE, TELL). Faculty working in or with the centers has helped to increase retention in the college.The college's efforts to recruit candidates from underserved populations have also been successful at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. In fall 2005 minority undergraduate education majors constitute 10.5 % of the student body, compared to 15.2% for the university as a whole. The college has continued to extend its efforts focused on undergraduate minority student recruitment, such as participation in Diversity Awareness Week at Georgia (D.A.W.G. Days), a university-wide effort to promote campus visits and orientations for students and parents of color. Through participation in the Graduate School's recruitment work, active representation on the Graduate Student Recruitment Committee, and attendance at recruitment fairs and related events, the college has increased its minority graduate population. Graduate candidates of color made up nearly 18.8% of all graduates in the college in the fall of 2005, with African Americans composing 13.5%. International candidates account for 1.5% of the college's undergraduate population and 14.13% of its graduate population. Further, the college is retaining and graduating graduate candidates of color.
Research and Scholarship.Since the initiation of the multicultural initiative in the early 1990s, several specific programs have been put in place in the college to promote research and scholarship into diversity issues and multicultural education. Grants from the National Science Foundation (The Conference on Diversity and Learning) and the Goizueta Foundation are examples of external funding specifically focused on diversity. A high percentage (20%) of faculty publications during 2004 were related to diversity.
2004 Faculty Publications Related to Diversity
Professional Development for Candidates, Faculty and Staff. In addition to formal experiences, candidates in the college have several opportunities to raise awareness of the importance of diversity in teaching and learning. The DCOD has been holding diversity seminars for over a decade. This past year, the DCOD joined efforts with the Center for Latino Achievement & Success in Education (CLASE) to offer a series of seminars related to diversity. The DCOD also sponsors an annual “Fall Fling” to increase awareness of diversity issues in the college as well as across the university.
Teacher Candidate Exit Survey Spring 2005 - Diversity
Teacher Candidate Exit Survey Fall 2004 - Diversity
Teacher Candidate Exit Survey AY 2004-2005 - Diversity
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