Humanities faculty launches committee ‘Diversity in the curriculum’

The new committee ‘Diversity in the curriculum’ will create an overview of classes about diversity within the Faculty of Humanities. The group will also consider how this ‘diverse selection’ should be presented to the students.

The goal? To make classes that focus on diversity more visible to students, both from within and outside the faculty, as the faculty’s Strategic Plan states. Also: “This aspect will be communicated more clearly to the outside world.”

What, exactly, is meant by the term ‘diversity’, is not entirely clear yet. Joas Wagemakers, assistant professor and member of the committee, says “first the task force will need to decide what exactly is meant by ‘diversity’, and what we’re going to do with that.”

The strategic plan, at least, contains some examples, as diversity ‘touches the core’ of what teachers and students of humanities study. “Particularly, expressions and behavior of people who in many aspects differ from them, be it culturally, linguistically, temporally, philosophically, socio-economically, politically, geographically, sexually, gender-wise or physically.”