SUNY Potsdam offers 'Biology of Sex and Gender,' 'Intersectional Environmentalism' seminars to satisfy new DEI requirements

The State University of New York at Potsdam will offer first-year students seminars on diversity, equity, and inclusion this fall that fulfill SUNY requirements for all students to complete DEI coursework.

Campus Reform reported on the new requirement earlier this year, which will take effect this fall.

The seminars are part of the “WAYS 103: Speaking about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)” series. Topics the workshops will touch on range from sex and gender to race and environmentalism.

“Diversity is central to SUNY Potsdam’s mission, as it has been for years,” Christine Doran, the general education program director, told Campus Reform by email. “[W]e see the WAYS 103 courses as part of that work.”

One seminar students can take under WAYS 103 describes the relationship between art and activism against discrimination. “What impact does activist art have on oppression in the U.S.?” the seminar’s description asks. The course will discuss “poverty, war, sexism, disability, and racism” as forms of oppression artists have spoken out against with their art.

[RELATED: SUNY to require DEI and social justice courses in fall 2023]

In “Biology of Sex and Gender,” teachers will prompt students to question how many sexes there are. “What if I told you that genetically people have five commonly recognized sexes, not two?”  the description for the workshop asks.

The description adds that sex is different than “gender, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation,” and pledges that throughout the workshop, students “will gain a better understanding of the complexity of the lives we live as sexed and gendered people.”

Gender won’t be the only diversity subject treated by the workshops. Those enrolled in “Race and Comics” will attempt to understand what it means for people to “see race” using comic books and graphic novels. Students “will look at both positive and negative visualizations, exploring images that celebrate racial diversity as well as those that emphasize stereotypes, in order to better understand how race is seen.” The workshop will get students to ask questions such as how they see their race and how they want others to see it.

[RELATED: Purdue advertises training seminar for ‘multicultural students’]

’Intersectionality,’ a term referring to the intersection of oppression of various identities, will be examined by another workshop entitled “Intersectional Environmentalism.” The course “takes an intersectional look” at how different identity groups preserve the environment. The course will emphasize how separate intersectional identities, such as “gender, race, sexual orientation, ableness,” pursue environmentalism in separate ways.

Other courses under the WAYS Seminar umbrella include “Plural Feminisms,” “Women Writing the Future,” and “Worlds of Women Drummers” in WAYS 102; classes in the WAYS 101 series include “Climate Catastrophe,” “Minority Rights,” “Race, Class, and Segregation,” and “The Ones Without A Voice.”

Campus Reform contacted SUNY Potsdam for comment. This story will be updated accordingly.