The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will require students to take minority culture class.
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has had discussion over minority affair such as diversity and races on its campus. Thus, on May 2, the Campus Senate finally signed the vote to require students to attend three culture classes: one class on US culture, one class on non-US or minority culture. Before the change, students were only required to pick one among the three, as reported by Quad Cities.
The UI senate OKs on adding non-western minority culture class has been announced and the course will start in the fall 2018, based on a Champaign News-Gazette article. Students quickly respond the change with tweets of opinions. Some of them said that they agree on the change. For instance, Race and Ethnicity class will expand student's knowledge on the things they have never seen before.
Take a class on Race and Ethnicity, or culture, or a history class that focuses on a minority. Expand what you know, see what you never see.
— Ashley Scurti (@AshleyScurti) May 4, 2016
This new program comes at a time when there have been racial issues in the UI campus. The Chicago Tribune reported some of minority affair incidents in the University of Illinois - one of them is the swastikas drawn on campus buildings. The supporters of the U. of I minority culture course said that there will be a holistic view instead of issues like anti-Muslim sentiment, religion, or sexual preference.
However many students argue that it will be complicated. Many faculties oppose the change because it is described as 'forcing students to delay graduation' just to fit in the culture course. They argue that it would be wiser to persuade than to require the students to take the classes. Moreover, these students are also worried about the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign tuition fees that might become costly.
In December 2015, the University of Iowa has applied similar program to their campus as Liberal Arts and Science students are obliged to take the course. The course requirement is said to enable students understand diversity.
