Diversity matters no matter what you teach

By Gayle Golden

Diversity matters. Whatever you are teaching, whether it’s account planning or media design or advanced reporting, you need to incorporate voices and perspectives from underrepresented groups that include race, gender, disability or ethnicity.

For one thing, research shows that exposure to diversity makes us and our students smarter and more productive. A 2014 article in Scientific American, republished in January of this year, reports that being around a diversity of people stimulates more creativity and hard work; it also encourages us to consider more alternatives before we make decisions. That article is just one of several useful links shared by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Educational Innovation in a resource page called Beyond Tolerance, which offers advice on handling sensitive discussions, promoting tolerance in the classroom and embedding diverse material in courses. 

Doing all this requires concerted effort, says Sid Bedingfield, HSJMC assistant professor and chair of the school’s Diversity Committee whose scholarship has focused on the civil rights struggle in South Carolina. Bedingfield’s best advice for instructors eager to incorporate diversity into courses? Focus on what he calls the “three Cs” of diversity": content, climate and common sense.

Embed content throughout

It’s important not to call out diversity as a token gesture with one or two assignments designed solely about difference. Students will sniff out the tactic and tune out pretty quickly, he says. Instead, throughout the semester, purposefully select a range of diverse authors or subjects and include those in regular course material.

Put it everywhere -- in photographs, articles, in the nature of what companies are trying to market or in case studies about communication breakdowns or historical examples about press coverage. 

“Everyone uses examples in their classes, of ad campaigns or journalism stories or series. The question is: Are you mixing it up?” Bedingfield says. ““The more you can show diverse examples that are about the work – not about the difference – the more students are going to get it.”

Create the climate

Quite often in our classes, students in underrepresented groups are just that – underrepresented. Students of color, including international students, account for less than 20 percent of HSJMC enrollment. That’s why you’ll find maybe only one or two students of color in most of the major courses.  Students who face gender non-conformity and disability are also outnumbered.

Instructors need to be sensitive to this, and again, overtly pointing out the issue is not the way to go, Bedingfield says. Time and patience is often the best strategy as you watch students adjust to the stresses of being "the other" in a sea of the majority. Staying sensitive to that will often reveal what those minority students need. Bedingfield offers these suggestions for creating a welcoming classroom climate:

• Notice student behaviors that might suggest a cultural tie-in, such as quietness, and find gentle ways to check in with the student to monitor progress. In other words, don’t assume behavior equals non-engagement.
• Stay sensitive to current events – especially in our curriculum – and to the impact discussions about those events have on various groups, such as those involving Muslim or transgender students. When discussion develops, set ground rules for respect and encourage students to express views calmly.
• Educate yourself about implicit bias, which is the notion all of us have biases we don’t always realize but that govern our views. Some people have disputed the notion of implicit bias, but Bedingfield contends that even thinking about your own implicit biases is the best way to mitigate them. If you want to explore that idea, you can check your own potential biases with Project Implicit's tests, or merely read about the non-profit's efforts to spread awareness about implicit bias. The Beyond Tolerance resource page also has an excellent link to an article on avoiding psychological or cognitive bias. 
• Other suggestions for the classroom from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, included in the Beyond Tolerance page, are:
• find low-risk ways to create leadership roles for minority students in small groups, which empowers those students and brings their voice into the class;
• meet one-on-one with minority students about learning goals to talk through any unstated anxieties they might have;
• connect course material whenever possible to students' experiences through discussion and lecture, which shows you are making an effort to reach beyond what appears normative for the class. 

Trust common sense

Bedingfield contends people often get anxious about accommodating diversity without realizing the solution begins with the effort itself. In other words, by taking the first steps of thinking it through, incorporating content and considering the climate, the rest is often a matter of common sense interactions with the students. 

“If you really care about every person feeling welcome and thinking they can do their best work in your class, then just make sure you think about how they can do that," he says. "It’s likely to happen.”

For more opportunities to incorporate diversity thinking into the classroom, the university’s Office of Equity and Diversity offers an equity and diversity certificate for those who want to delve more deeply into training about this issue. The program is free. 

What are you doing to create diversity in your course? If you have a good idea, post it below. And as usual, if you have a question or a comment for ProActive Teaching, please post one below or email me at ggolden@umn.edu.