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9/15/08

St. Lawrence Awarded Grant To Assess Diversity Requirement

CANTON - St. Lawrence University is the recipient of a four-year, $150,000 grant from the Teagle Foundation, which will allow the faculty to design an assessment process for the aims and objectives of a St. Lawrence education, in particular the requirement that all students should have an understanding of and respect for diverse cultures. St. Lawrence joins 12 other liberal arts colleges who have been given awards through the Teagle Foundation's program Grants for the Systematic Improvement of Student Learning at Liberal Arts Colleges.

In its proposal to the Teagle Foundation, the University stated that the project's purpose is "to assess and improve learning outcomes around the goal of deepening students' ability to critically engage notions of sameness and difference."

Vice President of the University and Dean of Academic Affairs Valerie Lehr stated, "We understand this grant as an excellent opportunity to help us to think about how assessment can be used to rethink curricular requirements so that we more clearly define learning goals and are able to understand whether students meet these goals."

The project will be led by Dana Professor of Global Studies Eve Stoddard. Stoddard teaches Caribbean and Irish literature; postcolonial theory; and both introductory and senior-level courses on race and ethnicity. She frequently speaks, writes and consults on faculty and curriculum development related to internationalization and global and intercultural studies in higher education in the U.S.

Currently, to qualify for a bachelor's degree, students must take two courses from two different departments or programs approved as "engaging difference," including diverse social and cultural practices and beliefs, either within or outside the United States. Courses meeting the diversity requirement may also be counted toward other major and minor requirements, but not toward First-Year Program or First-Year Seminar requirements. Participation in an approved program of study abroad satisfies one diversity course requirement, and students may use study abroad to fulfill only one diversity requirement.

Founded in 1944 by Walter C. Teagle, the Teagle Foundation is "dedicated to providing intellectual leadership and financial support to strengthen and promote undergraduate student learning in the liberal arts and sciences."

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