A group of some 220 students at Barnard College want the school to require a “more diverse and critical first-year curriculum.”
The petitioners, led by senior Claire Bouchard, say “the current curriculum ignores marginalized perspectives, does not provide enough opportunity to question the academic canon, should provide a better understanding of the construction of identities, and should take a more global approach.”
Bouchard adds that “[t]here was a need to incorporate some sort of critical thought and incorporate the ability to contextualize what you’re looking at, and being able to analyze the assumptions that go behind the works you’re looking at.”
Sounds as if either Barnard isn’t doing its job, or it’s just more of the silly “I can’t relate” message all too prevalent at colleges today.
It appears the latter is more likely.
The Columbia Daily Spectator reports:
“We read a piece about one Korean princess and that was it. We didn’t read any marginalized voices, except Juana Iné de la Cruz. Everything else was just European, Western, white women or men,” [student Ami] Sosa said. “Including other voices would be really beneficial to see other points of view and different versions of feminism.”
“As a woman of color, I have difficulty identifying with some of the reading material. First-year English options are limited in many ways. The topics are geared and related to the white man or white woman, and people of color have little to no voice, and if we are given a voice it is most likely going to be through a white man’s perspective,” [student Lauren] Babb said.
Fortunately, some students feel it’s worthy to maintain course material on Western canon:
Naina Sahrawat, BC ’18, who is currently taking the first-year seminar Legacy of the Mediterranean, said she worried that veering away from teaching the Western canon would inadequately prepare students for the world.
“If we suddenly changed the canon to include only books from Zora Neale Hurston, Margaret Mead, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and you went out into the world and said, ‘Hey, look at this canon I know,’ people would say, ‘That’s nice, but there’s no frame of reference for it,’” Sahrawat said.
Sahrawat says the petition is “irresponsible” due to it being too vague with no way to implement it.
Bouchard counters that the vagueness is purposeful.
“What we intend to set forward are learning objectives simply because we don’t know what it takes to set a professor’s curriculum. We don’t believe it’s our place to tell our professor how to teach a class.”
Regarding the desired change, she adds that “everyone knows it’s necessary.”
Indeed? 220 people is “everyone?”
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