Abstract:

Colleges and universities across the United States are creating and supporting a tsunami of activities to support and emphasize diversity. A subset of this movement is inclusive teaching, and the maintenance of an inclusive teaching-learning classroom environment. It is critically important for these colleges and universities to build the inclusion effort meaningfully, so that no aspect of diversity is left out or excluded from the effort. Race is one aspect of diversity. There are many other aspects of diversity, some of which are left out of common everyday applications of the meaning of diversity. But for diversity and inclusion to be successful, they must encompass all kinds of differences among us. Courses which claim to focus on diversity must be fully focused on all types of diversity, or must be named more narrowly, reflecting the particular segments of diversity that they contain.

This article will examine the meanings of diversity in higher education today; the scholarship which exists to support inclusive teaching in major academic disciplines; and the areas which lack appropriate focus and breadth for effective inclusive teaching. Some of my article is based on anecdotal examples, and some will be based on research into disciplines and the place and importance of diversity within these disciplines. My university has begun a major diversity initiative in the past three years, This is not the first such initiative; it is at least the third in the past 40+ years. All three efforts have been focused on racial diversity. And while there have been discussions on the need to broaden the definition of diversity, those discussions have not been held.

A useful starting point for such discussions concerning what should be included in diversity and in inclusive teaching is Title VII, also known as the Civil Rghts Act of 1964. This landmark piece of federal legislation, passed in 1964, which prohibited discrimination in employment against persons possessing certain immutable characteristics of race, color, religion, sex, gender, and national origin, In effect, the Act created several protected classes of people who could not be discriminated against in employment decisions due to their characteristics. And the Act became the initial legislation for more laws passed to protect people who were pregnant, disabled and older, to name a few categories. The diversity definitions used today at colleges and universities should all reflect the inclusion of these same groups of persons. However, this is not routinely the case.

In my article, attention will be paid to the development of today's use of "limited" diversity by colleges and universities; and how that has impacted inclusive teaching. Diversity efforts can't be true if they do not include all major kinds of differences among people, or at least those types that were recognized for legal protection in our federal laws. The second part of this article will examine inclusive teaching and the role of scholarship focused on diversity in different disciplines to enrich current courses and teaching approaches.

Keywords:

Diversity, Inclusive Teaching, Multicultural, Colleges and Universities.