UW Tacoma and its Community Pave Pathways to Promise

Posted on November 18, 2015November 18, 2015

UW Tacoma is addressing structural discrimination by building a college-going-culture with community partners

Washington Governor Jay Inslee visits Tacoma’s Stadium High School in 2014 to congratulate students admitted to UW Tacoma at a Pathways to Promise celebration. Pathways to Promise is a college-going-culture-building network of programs sponsored by UW Tacoma. Photo: Cody Char.

What does it mean to “create a college-going culture” in a community struggling with high student dropout rates? Recognizing the effects of oppressive barriers such as structural discrimination and the cycle of poverty, among other factors, UW Tacoma is fighting to make educational equity a reality for its community.

Dr. Cedric Howard, vice chancellor for Student and Enrollment Services, and his colleagues are working to make UW Tacoma a “catalyst and spark to revitalize education in this community and change the mental model of what it means to be a student.”

Effecting cultural change takes time — time dedicated to building trust and approaching issues from multiple angles. Programs and partnerships between individual faculty members, classes or school programs have existed for years and laid a foundation in the community for broader, institutional efforts that form the new Pathways to Promise network of programs.

Addressing community needs to increase college access

For underrepresented minorities, first-generation students, young adults who joined the military right out of high school, and even working adults with a few community college credits, the path to a bachelor’s degree can seem full of barriers. In fact, when the UW Tacoma campus was established in 1990, the Tacoma community had struggled for decades with a high dropout rate in its schools and a low percentage of students pursing higher education — only 18% of Pierce County residents held a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Determined to change those statistics and to live up to its public mission, UW Tacoma focused on listening to the needs of its community and finding solutions through creative programs and partnerships. “UW Tacoma has never had the ‘town and gown’ split,” says Sharon Parker, assistant chancellor for equity and diversity.

Creating a network of outreach serving distinct populations

Through Pathways to Promise, UW Tacoma is taking a holistic, community-centered approach to addressing issues of structural and institutional racism that impact college access and success. From recruitment to student engagement, faculty and administrators examine policies and practices for a pipeline of prospective students from K-12, community colleges, local organizations and the military.

It is the only program of its kind in the state to formalize a link between a four-year institution and public schools; Pathways to Promise includes partnerships with five area school districts, including Tacoma Public Schools. In a recent article in the News Tribune, Superintendent Carla Santorno praised UW Tacoma for bringing “direct services to our kids. I’ve worked with a lot of universities from an urban school setting. It’s one of the most rich partnerships that I’ve been a part of.”

Pathways to Promise applies multiple tactics to improve educational access and success

Close partnerships facilitate creative solutions to teach prospective students skills for goal-setting and navigating complex systems such as admissions and financial aid:
- Partnerships that guarantee admissions to high school students who meet the criteria foster the idea among students that college can be a realistic goal for the future. “We want to eliminate the idea that college is not attainable,” says Howard.
- While Tacoma Public School 11th graders took the PSAT and 12th graders took the SAT, UW Tacoma provided college planning curricula for 9th and 10th graders to make sure that all students were involved in college prep.
- The University partners with local high schools and foundations by developing customized curricula to prepare students for writing college and scholarship essays.
- Career Advisers in the Veterans Support Office help service men and women plan for their education in several ways. At Joint Base Lewis-McChord, they administer a career assessment 18 months before personnel are scheduled for discharge.
- The Duel Enrollment program at Tacoma Community College brings together a cohort of students to meet regularly with a UW Tacoma academic adviser so they can effectively plan ahead for a smooth transition.
Relationships with prospective students’ families create community trust, raise expectations: UW Tacoma admissions advisers develop programming specific to the needs of local middle and high schools. They get to know students and answer questions from their families. “If parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles think this is a good place, they’ll encourage their kids to go,” says Parker.
Bringing students to campus reduces anxiety, increasing a sense of belonging: For students who never envisioned college as a part of their future, a campus visit can go a long way toward picturing themselves as college students. Hosting programs on campuses helps prospective students meet staff, get to know campus and see what college life is like. They realize they can belong, reducing the risk they will experience imposter syndrome, a situation where students might feel like a fraud and prevent themselves from being successful.
Creating a seamless experience aids retention: “As little hand-off as possible,” is how Howard describes his plan for the experience of new students, which is especially critical for first-generation students. For admitted students, UW Tacoma looks for ways to ease the tough transitions that can often get in the way of student success and make them more likely to leave. The student orientation leaders transition into peer mentors for all new University students. High-impact practices such as the experiential learning that happens through peer mentorship provide dual benefits of increasing retention for both mentors and mentees, results that are especially pronounced for underrepresented minorities and first-generation college students.
A cycle of service teaches best practices, improves retention and supports a college-going culture: For example, the Great Futures Fund partnership with the Boys and Girls Club of South Puget Sound helps participants plan for their futures. UW Tacoma students mentor Club members, helping with school work and applying for college. If Club members are admitted to UW Tacoma, the Great Futures Fund provides a one-year scholarship. After their first year in college, the students then have paid service internships at Boys and Girls Clubs where they, in turn, work with younger students.

The Math-Science-Leadership Program brings middle and high school students to campus for a free three-week summer program where they conduct research in a lab at the Center for Urban Waters in Tacoma. Photo: Shoshana Glickman.

Building a college-going culture

Many factors are involved in real and lasting culture change, and while the University’s efforts are part of a larger community endeavor, the results are undeniable. At Lincoln High School in Tacoma, less than 50 percent of the class of 2010 graduated. In 2014, nearly 80 percent of seniors graduated. Other schools have seen similar results. By listening to the needs of its partners, working side-by-side to help K-12 students, veterans, first-generation, underrepresented minorities and others see themselves as college students, and bringing the expertise and knowledge of the UW to the issues at hand, UW Tacoma’s investment in its community is paying off. Together with its community, UW Tacoma is providing meaningful access to education, the cornerstone for creating a more equitable society.

Promoting Equity in Engineering Relationships

Posted on November 18, 2015November 18, 2015

Students learn about diversity in the field of Engineering and gain skills to address equity in college and careers

The College of Engineering prepares students for a workforce in which diversity is increasingly important to teamwork, design and outcomes. Photo: Matt Hagen.

In 2009 a program with the potential to change the way we address diversity challenges in STEM was founded in the College of Engineering on the Seattle campus. The Promoting Equity in Engineering Relationships (PEERs) program embraces diversity in its many forms — race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ability and more. It is popular with students for the way it addresses such a broad spectrum within the context of engineering. PEERs anchors discussions with data, teaches communication skills, and focuses on real-world applications of race and equity issues that engineering students will likely face.

Joyce Yen, program/research manager for UW ADVANCE Center for Institutional Change, has led the PEERs program with Sapna Cheryan, associate professor of psychology, since it was originally established with a National Science Foundation grant.

Making topics of diversity and inclusion relevant to the engineering discipline

Rather than bringing in external faculty for a diversity course, Yen and Cheryan found a new model to avoid the disengagement that is common with “outsourcing.” They developed a curriculum grounded in the social sciences but highly relevant to engineering. PEERs was a one-credit seminar until 2015, when they launched a three-credit model to fulfill the diversity requirement and saw enrollment increase. “Students appreciate being able to stay in their own department for the diversity requirement, so it reaches students who wouldn’t have taken a course on diversity on their own,” says Yen. After the class, students can continue as PEERs leaders (see sidebar) and raise awareness in other ways.

Students in PEERs rely on research and gain communication tools to address diversity and inclusion in engineering. Photo courtesy of Joyce Yen.

The program has intentionally evolved to give students the tools to thrive within a flawed system while working to change it. “It creates a community where engineering students can see they’re not the only ones who find things challenging,” says Cheryan. “The research has shown that [this awareness] can protect students from feeling like they don’t belong and dropping out.”

Because engineering students are trained to always look to the data, “The main focus in PEERs is based on research, not intuition or what their parents told them,” explains Cheryan. “We want to replace misconceptions with accurate notions.”

The pragmatism of diversity in the engineering field

Yen and Cheryan’s curriculum also emphasizes the practical implications of learning about diversity, such as the state of the engineering field. “They might enter companies that are extremely homogenous,” says Cheryan. “So it’s possible that students might very rarely have to think about diversity, but PEERs will hopefully force these students to think about it and identify things they can do.”

Yen also points out how the communication and leadership tools which students gain will help them succeed. “Our graduates will go out and have influence in the work force — maybe they’ll start their own company. And we ask them, ‘Wouldn’t you rather be in a place where everyone feels included?’” explains Yen. From managerial challenges to user design and testing, “there are real consequences to not having empathy or understanding the experiences of others.”

Implicit bias, privilege, stereotype threat and intelligence theories are core concepts explored by PEERs:

Being explicit about implicit bias

Implicit biases are attitudes or stereotypes that we carry around with us unconsciously. Implicit biases often come across as structural discrimination, which encompasses the norms and practices of the systems in which we live, as opposed to institutional discrimination, the policies within a system that perpetuate bias.
A former PEERs student, Ahlmahz Negash, Ph.D. candidate in electrical engineering, described, “As a black female engineer, I did not feel out of place being the only female in a class. However, the few times I’ve discussed diversity in engineering with male colleagues, they responded negatively. They felt that programs to promote diversity are not necessary — that if women are interested in engineering, they will study it. Most people only know and recognize institutional barriers. PEERs provided me with [the data] to show that structural barriers can be just as damaging as institutional barriers.” The PEERs unit on implicit bias connects with the unit on privilege by demonstrating that, as Cheryan explains, “you can be well intentioned but still perpetuate bias.”

Recognizing privilege

Learning about privilege helps students understand the ways they may have been a recipient of unearned benefits throughout their lives and to understand and recognize implications of structural inequality in our society. Students are challenged to think about why they are where they are in life, how that has influenced their choices and opportunities, how they’ve been the recipient of advantages, and that success is not solely determined by how hard someone works. “We don’t even realize all the different dimensions of privilege — that’s what privilege is,” says Cheryan.

Giving a name to stereotype threat

Stereotype threat is the concept that a person is afraid of either living up to a negative stereotype or falling short of a positive one. For example, one positive stereotype is “Asians are good at math,” so an Asian student who is experiencing stereotype threat might feel burdened by the expectation to always understand mathematical concepts.
Mayoore Jaiswal, an electrical engineering graduate student, describes a negative stereotype that was once made about her: “A visiting professor asked me if the project that I was working on was hard because of my gender. I was lost for words. The PEERs experience helped me to gather my thoughts quickly and give a constructive reply.”
“A lot of the underrepresented minorities and women in the class have felt a stereotype threat but didn’t know what to call it. Seeing the research helps them label it, which decreases its negative power when it occurs,” Cheryan explains.

Recognizing intelligence is not fixed

“There is a growing body of research showing intelligence is malleable, not fixed. Your brain is a muscle and you have to exercise it by studying and working,” says Cheryan. People who think intelligence is fixed tend to avoid difficult tasks and the associated negative feedback. This can lead students to convince themselves that they don’t belong in that class, lab or workplace, or assume it is easy for everyone else. “In fact, grit, the ability to stick with something, is more predictive of success than IQ,” she says. These tools provide underrepresented students
and others who might begin to doubt their ability the tools to reframe a poor exam grade as a sign to work harder or seek support, rather than believing they don’t belong.

Faculty Diversity Scholars Support Inclusive Teaching

Posted on November 18, 2015November 18, 2015

Faculty Diversity Scholars from the three UW campuses help colleagues tackle issues of race and equity in the classroom

Faculty Diversity Scholars (from left to right): Ralina Joseph, associate professor of communication; Sapna Cheryan, associate professor of psychology; Joyce Yen, program/research manager for UW ADVANCE; Robin Evans-Agnew, assistant professor in Nursing and Healthcare Leadership programs, UW Tacoma. Not pictured: Anu Taranath, senior lecturer in English and Comparative History of Ideas (CHID); and Wadiya Udell, associate professor of community psychology, UW Bothell. Photo: Ignacio Lobos.

“How can a quantitative class, such as a course with chemicals and test tubes, actually change inside a pro-race-and-equity framework?” Dr. Robin Evans-Agnew, assistant professor in Nursing and Healthcare Leadership programs at UW Tacoma, poses this question as part of his role as a Faculty Diversity Scholar.

Such questions and more are central to the role of the Faculty Diversity Scholars, selected from across the three campuses for their expertise in race and equity pedagogy for a pilot program developed by the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) for the 2014-15 academic year. With the advent of the new diversity requirement, Faculty Diversity Scholars acted as resources for other faculty members who were adapting, developing or reframing courses to align with the new diversity course requirement.

The Faculty Diversity Scholars supported curriculum transformation and inclusive teaching across all three campuses in multiple ways. From serving as panel participants and advisors for department events to working one-on-one with a department’s staff, faculty and graduate students, Faculty Diversity Scholars helped different departments learn to assess climate issues and find ways forward toward an inclusive learning environment.

The scholars have responded to questions and requests for assistance such as:

Am I ready to facilitate a tricky classroom discussion myself?

Take a little time to prepare yourself and become comfortable with feeling uncomfortable, recommend the scholars. “Know your own touchy spots,” suggests Dr. Wadiya Udell, associate professor of community psychology at UW Bothell. “Faculty members who successfully engage in these discussions are those who anticipate conflict, are comfortable managing conflict within the classroom and can work with extreme opinions on the topic without shutting down discussion.”

What do I do if I think a microaggression happens in my classroom?

“Faculty need to interrupt any iterations of racism, sexism, classism and homophobia in the classroom. Such interruptions should happen firmly, but with kindness and compassion for all in the room,” says Dr. Ralina Joseph, associate professor of communication and director of the Center for Communication, Difference and Equity.

I’m still confused about why inclusive pedagogy is necessary in my class.

“Inclusive pedagogy should not be thought of as pandering or lowering standards. Inclusive pedagogy acknowledges human diversity,” says Udell. “People are different. Not everyone in a classroom learns the same way or engages in the same manner. It is important that faculty attempt to teach to the broad range of students in a course, not only those who fit their preferred learning and teaching style.”

How do I know if my department needs a climate assessment?

“If you’re even asking the question, you probably do,” says Dr. Anu Taranath, senior lecturer in English and CHID. “Ask around, ask as many people as you can. Listen between the lines, between the silences, read the frustrations, the hopes for what might be possible. And if some people say ‘no,’ ask yourself why they might say that, what’s at stake.”

The pilot program has been renewed for another year to build on this work and meet demand. The CTL is receiving a record number of requests for consultations on equity and diversity pedagogies. All CTL consultants also respond to requests with the support of the Faculty Diversity Scholars, as well as offering various CTL resources, consultations and workshops on inclusive teaching.

With a focus on action to bring equity to a diverse classroom, Evans-Agnew acknowledges the many complexities. “This is a work in progress. I certainly feel like my challenge is that my privilege blinds me from what I can see and have a perspective on,” he says. “We have to live in that challenge, be OK being uncomfortable and figure out a way to provide some actions that may be incomplete, partial solutions for things.”

Equity and Difference Speaker Series and Conversations on Activism and Expression

Posted on November 18, 2015November 18, 2015

Discussions around race and equity bring the UW community together before public lectures in the Equity & Difference Speaker Series

Harry Belafonte (front row, center) with UW President Ana Mari Cauce (front row, right) and UW students, faculty and staff after the lecture on Oct. 6, 2015. Photo: Elizabeth Lowry.

The desire to increase the amount — and quality — of dialogue about race and equity has inspired the Graduate School and the UW Alumni Association to pair “Facilitated Conversations” with selected lectures from the yearly series they traditionally present. Titled “Equity and Difference: Keeping the Conversation Going,” the series exposes and explains transgressions and struggles, both systemic and personal, experienced by so many in our communities today. The series features thought leaders from UW and around the world who are working to confront prejudice and create change.

In the “Facilitated Conversations” hosted just before each lecture, audience members meet and talk in small roundtable groups. They can share their personal experiences, discuss new ideas and brainstorm actions and solutions related to the lecturer’s theme.

“Gaining the skills to dialogue with people from diverse backgrounds and across multiple disciplines is fundamental to how our society builds communities that are equitable and inclusive,” says David Eaton, vice provost and dean of the Graduate School. “The objective of this unique series of discussions is to support student involvement and skill-building in these important conversations, and to encourage participation in discussions of difference.”

Leigh Friedman, a senior who participated in the conversation before Harry Belafonte’s lecture, stated, “I loved having students, faculty and administrators at one table. I didn’t realize how helpful that could be in ‘connecting the dots’ of the problem.”

Facilitated Conversations are paired with the following lectures:

October 6, 2015: “Stars for Freedom,” Harry Belafonte and the Civil Rights movement

Civil Rights leader, actor, singer and activist Harry Belafonte kicked off the series with an interview by Valerie Curtis Newton of the UW School of Drama. His discussion of the link between artists and activism connects to the recent publication of the University of Washington Press: “Stars for Freedom,” which examines the history of actors who supported the Civil Rights Movement.

January 14, 2016: What’s the Difference With ‘Difference’?

Ralina L. Joseph, associate professor of communication, explores how and why the language we use matters both on an individual and a broader level. She looks at the language associated with minority-identity classifications and how changes can speak to shifting principles of naming. Joseph is an adjunct associate professor in the departments of American Ethnic Studies and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, and is the founding director of the new UW Center for Communication, Difference and Equity. Read more and find registration information.

April 5, 2016: Microaggression: Power, Privilege and Everyday Life

American journalist, culture critic and television personality Touré will visit campus to discuss microaggressions, manifestations of power and privilege in everyday life and the impact on the human experience. Touré is a co-host of The Cycle on MSNBC and was also a contributor to MSNBC’s The Dylan Ratigan Show, and the host of Fuse’s Hiphop Shop and On the Record. Read more and find registration information.

Resources for facilitators of conversation about race and equity

The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) offers resources for faculty and other discussion leaders with tips on leading tough discussions and creating safe spaces for discussing equity and difference.

Creating a safe space is crucial to engaging in meaningful conversations. It means acknowledging the topics can be uncomfortable for everyone, that mistakes may be made, and reserving the right to have “do-overs” for difficult moments that need more processing. Find more CTL resources, tips and guides for creating safe spaces.
Inclusive teaching means teaching in ways that do not exclude students, accidentally or intentionally, from opportunities to learn. Find more strategies for inclusive teaching.

UW Bothell’s Diversity Workshops: From Dialogue to Action

Posted on November 18, 2015November 18, 2015

Terryl Ross prompts meaningful conversations on race and equity and moves them from talk to action

Terryl Ross, Ph.D., Director of Diversity, University of Washington Bothell

“I hear people say they wish they’d done these workshops earlier. People think I’m going to lecture them or tell them they have to like black people or be ‘politically correct.’ Instead, we explore what the changes in their community mean, and it becomes real.” —Terryl Ross, Ph.D.

At the University of Washington Bothell, Terryl Ross, director of diversity, helps people move from having conversations about race, equity and diversity to taking action. He builds opportunities for dialogue, bringing people from diverse backgrounds together to learn from each other and from experts about race and equity. “People are ready to have a higher-level conversation that leads to real action,” says Ross, “and they want to have it in a safe place and with people who are different from them.”

As part of this work, Ross has designed several workshops that offer students, faculty, staff and community members the opportunity to learn more about themselves, their fellow participants and the future of their communities. Most importantly, workshop participants work together to choose a course of action based on their shared experience, and leave empowered to do more. This year, ideas generated in previous workshops are being implemented campus-wide at UW Bothell.

“As our society continues on a path toward a more ‘color-blind’ attitude, more people need to be aware of the subtle ways in which institutional racism is further embedded in our every action,” says Karin Clayton (UW Bothell ’07), a database coordinator at Wellspring Family Services who attended the UW Bothell diversity conference Ross organized in spring 2015. “The unconscious ways in which people treat others is, to me, almost more damaging than outright abuse because that person is unaware of their impact on others. Attending events like this will hopefully plant the seed of awareness.”

Ross employs several techniques to help participants talk about race and equity. He focuses on both data and identity as tools to start conversations about differences rather than political correctness, and provides people with a common language and examples to talk about the issues. “This stuff is here whether we are in this workshop or not,” says Ross. “So, how do we deal with this?”

Telling the story of our changing community through data

Relying on census data, Ross introduces some workshops by telling the story of “two Americas” — two demographic groups roughly equal in size. One tends to be older, whiter, more conservative and interested in health care; the other is younger, ethnically diverse, more liberal and interested in education. By sharing data on these groups’ growth trends, political leanings and more, workshop participants begin with a mutual starting place. They aren’t asked for their opinions. Instead, they talk about what the demographic trends around increasing diversity can reveal about the future of a community and what they might be seeing in their own neighborhoods. Ross says, “If everyone had a thought bubble over their head about how they see the country, each one would be different. Working with data takes the opinion out and helps people see the patterns and systems. It’s powerful because it gives them a common starting point to talk.”

Identity as middle ground since everyone has one…or many

Identity is another powerful conversation starter, notes Ross, since everyone has multiple identities — some stronger than others. He finds identity a helpful concept to introduce the topic of race in context. “The more diverse the audience, the better the workshop,” says Ross.

Participants in Ross’ diversity workshop learn about different dimensions of identity. People have more control over some dimensions than others, and some may change over time, such as education level, family status, religion, military experience or where they live. Others we are born to, such as race, ethnicity, age, mental and physical abilities, or sex at birth.

**Sample Identity Wheel:** As a starting place for deeper conversation, workshop participants map and discuss the intersectionality of their own identities. Dimensions with more relative importance to an individual are marked closer to the edges.

Ross asks participants to plot aspects of their identities on a wheel-shaped chart, from race to family status and everything in between, assigning relative importance to each. Ross says, “It becomes very personal to them. No two people have the same wheel yet they can find interesting commonalities. Both may rate race as very important but they are from different ethnic groups, for example, or maybe they are the same race but one says it matters a lot to them and for the other it doesn’t.” Considering the dimensions of identity prompts genuine questions and real listening about what race and other identities mean to each person.

Developing a common language for talking about race

Ross defines terms and shares examples when he moderates conversations about microaggressions in the workplace and in the classroom. Participants learn that microaggressions are “brief, often unintentional and without intended malice, everyday exchanges that belittle and alienate a member of a marginalized group.” They include actions like confusing a person’s ethnicity with that of a different group; consistently mispronouncing a person’s name; interrupting; only making eye contact or taking questions from people of one group; making jokes aimed at minorities; or dismissing the validity of slights described by minorities.

Ross shares examples from media clips. “After sharing a clip with participants, they get it. Groups find it very powerful to discuss a real example. It’s not theoretical,” explains Ross.

Workshop participants develop the language to describe things they may have seen but not understood before. Clayton, the UW Bothell alumna who invited Ross to give a workshop at her office’s “Lunch and Learn” program, had an immediate revelation from that discussion. “I had multiple experiences with a coworker that were uncomfortable. I couldn’t pinpoint what the issue was, but I knew it didn’t feel quite right,” she says. “Afterwards, I realized I was experiencing a microaggression, which enabled me to process the encounters in a different manner.”

Moving from talk to action

All workshops end with a call to action. Groups craft a plan for how they can start making changes, get involved or develop a community service project that would address the issues they discussed. According to Ross, “The workshop explains a lot and participants feel that they are more grounded — with language to describe things they’ve seen but didn’t understand. I ask, ‘If you could do something, what would it be?’” says Ross. “Last year, a group at UW Bothell decided they wanted to host a dialogue on race so we’re pursuing that this year.”

Increasing opportunities for dialogues on difference

Heading into his second year as UW Bothell’s director of diversity, Ross has received even more requests to hold workshops for groups both on and off the UW Bothell campus. Ross is planning what he calls “Bothell 2.0,” new programming that includes both the second annual Diversity Week in spring 2016 and an expanded Diversity Conference open to the community. New this year is a dialogue on race, an idea that developed from workshop participants. All of it is designed to increase opportunities for students to find commonalities and see the humanity in people different from themselves.

Bothell images — Given the growing diversity of Bothell — both the city and the University — these workshops are leveraging a unique opportunity, and serve as amodel for creating conversations throughout the entire community. Photos courtesy of Terryl Ross.

Diversity Requirement

Posted on November 17, 2015November 18, 2015

On May 24, 2013, a long-time student-led effort to pass a diversity course requirement for all UW undergraduates came to fruition. Students entering in fall 2014 and later must meet this graduation requirement, which includes three credits of coursework that focus on the sociocultural, political and economic diversity of human experience at local, regional or global scales.

The faculty legislation states, “The requirement is meant to help the student develop an understanding of the complexities of living in increasingly diverse and interconnected societies.” Courses that fulfill the diversity requirement focus on cross-cultural analysis and communication, and historical and contemporary inequities such as those associated with race, ethnicity, class, sex and gender, sexual orientation, nationality, ability, religion, age, veteran status and socioeconomic status. Course activities encourage critical thinking about topics such as power, inequality, marginality and social movements, and support effective cross-cultural communication skills.

The passage of the diversity requirement is the culmination of 25 years of work. UW students initiated three previous proposals that encountered resistance at various stages of the approval process. The proposal that ultimately passed originated in 2010 and was led by the UW Students for Diversity Coalition. The coalition’s membership featured students from several campus organizations, including the Black Student Union, First Nations, Filipino American Student Association and Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano/a de Aztlán. Their proposal was initially approved by the Associated Students of the UW in the fall of 2012. The proposal was also discussed and worked on by the Faculty Council on Multicultural Affairs, Faculty Council on Women in Academia, Faculty Council on Academic Standards, Senate Executive Committee and Faculty Senate. Read more about the diversity requirement at the UW.