SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) – The University of Illinois Springfield Campus Senate introduces new resolution to eliminate its General Education curriculum focusing on issues of diversity and engaged citizenship.
For over a decade now, Engaged Citizenship Common Experience has been a core curriculum of the UIS academic experience.
According to the UIS website, ECCE courses provide, “a distinctive element to the baccalaureate education at UIS, and encourage a commitment to making a difference in the world.”
UIS is offering several ECCE courses this semester including: Business, Ethics & Society; Conviction of the Innocent; Women of Color and Minority Women; Pacific War: WW II in Asia; and Beyond Bias: Racism, Sexism and Heterosexism.
The ECCE curriculum also comprises Internships and Engagement Experiences, including study abroad/study away programs.
A group of faculty members oppose the resolution and are working to defeat it.
Professor of History, Peter Shapinsky says, “This resolution to eliminate UIS’s innovative diversity course requirements misrepresents more than a decade of hard work by faculty and dismisses the successes of our students. [The resolution] is unbecoming of an institution of higher education; it makes a mockery of our work to build a public liberal arts university that enshrines equality, social justice, and diversity as core values. It will deny our students important local and global experiences.”
Campus Senator and Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Ryan Williams, who teaches a popular ECCE course, states “This is the week of MLK, Jr. Remembrance. We are on the eve of Black History Month--at the height of a pandemic that has only furthered structural inequalities. An attempt to eliminate established curriculum focused on central issues of social class, race, ethnicity, and gender is not the legacy we want to leave for our students at this specific time in history.”
Resolution 51-25 is on the Campus Senate agenda for a first reading set for January 21 at 10 a.m. A vote on the resolution could take place as early as Friday, February 4th.
