Duke Student Government legislators heavily debated a resolution about diversity in the undergraduate curriculum which narrowly passed Wednesday night.
The legislation proposes that "each department form a committee with student members to evaluate the diversity of its course offerings for the major and propose changes where necessary in order to provide a more global perspective." It passed 32-29.
The creators of the legislation, Trinity sophomores Christian Grose and Jaelae Smith, said the legislation represents the belief of many students that the curriculum does not focus enough on non-Western contributions.
"The curriculum is too one-sided. It says that different cultures weren't as important as Western culture," Smith said.
The intent of the legislation is not to re-design the structures of individual majors but to create a greater number of course offerings for students who want to learn about non-Western perspectives, Grose said.
For example, all of the courses offered by the philosophy department focus on Western philosophy, while none concern non-Western philosophy, Grose said.
"We want to make options available and equal for everyone to make their own choices," he said.
A much debated amendment to the legislation calls for faculty to research new areas of their disciplines in order to offer more diverse subjects.
"Tenured faculty have spent their whole careers on a small, concentrated area, and to expect them to change their specialties is ignorant and a waste," said Trinity freshman Brian Wise.
Some students said that rather than ask current faculty to re-focus their areas of expertise, new faculty with different concentrations should be hired.
"There's nothing wrong with demanding the best professors Duke can get. There's nothing wrong with demanding the best education we can get," said Trinity sophomore Peggy Cross. Originally, the legislation suggested evaluations for all departments, primarily history, music, political science, art and art history, English and philosophy. But the citation of these seven departments was deleted because legislators opposed naming specific departments in a proposal that was intended to address all departments.
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