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GEN Foundation: Race, Ethnicity and Gender Diversity (REGD) Guidelines

For the Race, Ethnicity and Gender Diversity (REGD) category of the new General Education (GEN) program, please visit the Office of Academic Affairs website to find information on the requirements for submitting GEN Foundation: REGD courses. 

Please see below for guidance and general philosophies of the REGD Subcommittee of the ASC Curriculum Committee, which they use to supplement the required materials from the Office of Academic Affairs when they review courses. 

  1. Where this category differs from the old GE in terms of Diversity in the US and Global Diversity, is that it is FOUNDATIONAL, not an add-on. So, if you are revising a course from the old category, please make sure you address the foundational nature of the course for the category.
  2. Race, Ethnicity and Gender diversity ALL need to be represented in the proposal and syllabus (although there can be different ratios - e.g. a focus on Gender that also examines intersections with race and ethnicity, as well as other topics)  
  3. The Proposal and Syllabus need to be REFLECTED by each other at the level of course content and assignments - so students can see how the Goals and Expected Learning Outcomes (ELOs) of the foundation are being met by content and assignments, not just the course reviewers. One way to do this is to bring some of the responses from the submission form into the syllabus in showing how the course goals meet the goals and ELOs of the GE category.
  4. We are looking for an INTERSECTIONAL approach to race, ethnicity and gender diversity running throughout the course, and, ideally, explicitly grounded at the beginning of the course 
  5. We encourage departments to use this foundation as an opportunity to do the SELF-REFLEXIVE work of engaging students with issues of diversity at the level of academic disciplines and sub-disciplines. So, for example, when setting intro textbooks for a particular field, have them accompanied by readings and topics that engage with issues of diversity within that said field as well.   
  6. We recommend adding a LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT to syllabus. There has been lots of discussion of this at the university right now - new land acknowledgment in the process of being drafted.
  7. Once a course is approved, any future iterations of the course should MAINTAIN a foundational, intersectional, and self-reflexive focus on Race, Ethnicity and Gender Diversity.