Georgetown University to add social justice emphasis to existing ‘diversity’ core requirement
A new ‘Pathways to Social Justice’ requirement will substitute the current ‘Engaging Diversity’ core requirement for Georgetown University’s undergraduate students.
The change will take effect with the Class of 2027 this fall.
A subcommittee of Georgetown University students and faculty tasked with redesigning the school’s “Engaging Diversity” core curriculum component recently announced social justice-focused revisions to the requirement.
The core curriculum requirement, now renamed “Pathways to Social Justice,” obligates students to take a number of courses oriented around diversity and related concepts.
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One component of the revisions is the addition of a new course called “University Seminar in Race, Power, and Justice at Georgetown,” which establishes “a common vocabulary” for Georgetown students to use when engaging in conversations about racial equity and justice.
”This course will focus on Georgetown’s history, including the enslavement of people of African descent, as well as how that history intersects with national and global experiences of slavery and emancipation, settler colonialism, imperialism, and contemporary struggles for justice,” reads the Pathways to Social Justice proposal document.
Elaborating on the reasoning behind the curriculum requirement’s name change, the subcommittee writes, ”The replacement of the term ‘Diversity Requirement’ with the title ‘Pathways to Social Justice’ will demonstrate and signal our recognition that the time is now for a transformative cultural change in our curriculum and anti-racism practices.”
In addition to adding a new course, the subcommittee is altering the previous Engaging Diversity curriculum by removing the “global and domestic” course categories such that the range of classes that qualify for satisfying the requirement is narrowed.
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Instead, courses will now “require approval by a committee” to ensure they are in line with the new learning goals and are taught by faculty who have been instructed on how to teach the course.
The new changes will take effect with the Class of 2027 this fall.
Campus Reform contacted all relevant parties listed for a comment and will update this article accordingly.
