Barnard College is considering cutting back on the school’s language and laboratory-science requirements and add a diversity requirement.
The new rules would decrease the language requirement to two semesters and the laboratory-science requirement to one semester The changes would add a technology requirement as well.
The diversity requirement would replace a category called “Cultures in Comparison,” which covers “various cultures and countries,” and would focus “on local, global, and social issues,” according to an article published in the Columbia Spectator.
Faculty presented the proposal at a curriculum-review meeting on Thursday.
According to Provost Linda Bell, Barnard, a women’s college affiliated with Columbia University, hopes to finish the review by the end of the spring term and implement the changes beginning with the class of 2020.
Barnard students had expressed concerns about the lack of diversity in their curriculum at a series of town halls last semester
“We find a lot of students are actually iterating the same idea,” senior Claire Bouchard told the Spectator. “They’re iterating this call for a need to have a more critical perspective of what they’re looking at, and being given the tools to engage in conversation that may not necessarily fall in line with what a lot of the Western world would like to think.”
— Katherine Timpf is a reporter for National Review Online.