Education Commons^™

Series

Communication

2010

Academia and Student Affairs o Currently the academic curriculum is not interdisciplinary, inclusive and/or concerned about educating our future graduates about cultural awareness o Certain courses such as URI 101, COM 100, and several other general education requirements are again not reflective of a university that is “thinking big.” Such courses lack dialogue, diversity, equity and inclusion nor do they reflect the vision and mission of the university which directly impacts the culture of our institution o Currently, URI is lacking in creating conditions necessary for all campus community members to feel welcomed, supported, included, and valued by the university and each other o Currently the Greek systems are not implementing diversity/inclusion in their activities to educate the larger campus community and this again reflects the lack of awareness in their recruitment processes o Diversity is lacking immensely and it is not practical to celebrate it in a week at URI (i.e., Diversity Week) o URI lacks a unifying culture and stories or traditions that can be shared by community members to encourage dialogue and transformative communication among students o Lack of training among student staff, faculty, staff, and administration is a crucial issue, which is a threat to the greater campus community and diversity o Students in certain respective majors and disciplines are currently held to different standards with regards to general education requirements and do not have an opportunity to learn about issues of diversity and inclusion o While the orientation program is sufficient in getting the job done by informing students about the values, mission, academic and social future of this university, it lacks in collectively and accurately depicting how we hold our students accountable and further the sort of students this university values and needs