Intent and Purpose
St. Olaf is a residential college where students live and learn in community with each other. The breadth of knowledge that is the hallmark of a liberal arts education requires a diversity of ideas, backgrounds, and perspectives. Equity calls for access and the recognition of the contributions, perspectives, beliefs and lived experience of all members of the college community. Inclusion provides opportunities for students, staff, and faculty members to integrate and engage fully regardless of identity and because of identity. Intentional and informed engagement across differences should take place in courses, student organizations, physical spaces, operations, and programming.
LUTHERAN CENTER HOSTS
INTERFAITH SEMINAR SERIES
LED BY EBOO PATEL
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“As our workplaces become more diverse in all sorts of ways — including religiously — it is really important to think about where and how religious diversity shows up in workplace contexts, and how we might be better equipped to navigate those differences in supportive and productive ways.”
Lutheran Center Director
Deanna Thompson ’89
PARTNERS IN ACHIEVING GOAL 2
- Alumni and Parent Relations
- Assessment Committee
- College Ministry
- Director of the Center for Innovation in the Liberal Arts (teaching and learning center)
- Director of the Institute for Freedom and Community
- Director of the Lutheran Center for Faith, Values and Community
- Director of the Taylor Center for Equity and Inclusion
- Director of To Include is To Excel
- Events
- General Education Task Force and Curriculum Committee
- Music Organizations
- Student Government Association
- Student Life
- President’s Special Assistant for Institutional Diversity, Vice Presidents for Student Life and Mission, Provost.
2A: In the curriculum and the classroom setting, explore and engage with diversity and related social, political, religious, and/or cultural dynamics where appropriate within the curriculum
Treating diversity and related social, political, religious, and/or cultural dynamics in the curriculum and promoting classroom environments and curricula that invite all students to engage and thrive in their choice of study have been the focus of To Include is To Excel as well as the work of the Center for Innovation in the Liberal Arts and many departments and faculty members. Recent examples include:
- Opening Day speakers and all-employee discussions of issues related to diversity, teaching an increasingly diverse student body, and addressing changing needs of students for faculty and staff: 2013, 2016, 2018, and plans for 2019
- NSF grant: “Experiences in Metacognition and Early Research to Increase Degree Completion of STEM Undergraduate Students”
- Recent curricular changes, including
- Revision of the Multicultural Studies – Domestic requirement;
- Revision of the American Conversation;
- “Race Matters” Conversation;
- Recent tenure-track hire in world musicology;
- Expanded staffing in the RACE program;
- Music 245: “Music and Social Justice”
- Political Science 121: “Conservative Philosophy in History”;
- Spanish 232 (FOL): “Latinx Experiences in the United States.”
- Over 32 curricular and pedagogical projects supported through To Include is To Excel
- On-going curricular development
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Revision of the General Education Curriculum (in process)
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Continued development of courses engaging themes of interreligious dialogue by the Religion Department
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“Diversity, Decolonization and the German Curriculum” national conference sponsored by St. Olaf.
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- With leadership from To Include is To Excel,
- expand faculty members’ capacities in regard to inclusive pedagogies,
- with particular departments and programs, identify points in the curriculum where some cohorts of students may be better served,
- disseminate and apply broadly the lessons learned from the grant’s projects.
- With leadership from the Center for Innovation in the Liberal Arts, provide regular sessions addressing issues of diversity, ability, intersectionality, inequality, and equity.
- Support departments and programs in an examination of student patterns of enrollment and majoring (or pursing a concentration) to identify and correct potential roadblocks to success in the major or concentration.
2B: enhance opportunities for inter-faith and inter-religious partnerships and events
- Establishment of the Lutheran Center for Faith, Values, and Community, which will provide resources for interfaith engagement
- Addition of a part-time rabbi to the College Ministry team
- Plan to appoint a part-time Muslim chaplain to the College Ministry team
- Support from Student Activities and College Ministry for student organizations representing different faith traditions, such as the Muslim Student Organization and the Jewish Student Organization
- Professional development for a five-member faculty-staff team and grant funding for enhanced programming in inter-faith engagement through participation in a 2019 Summer Institute co-sponsored by the Association of American Colleges and Universities and Interfaith Youth Core
- See also 2.a.
- Enhanced staff and budget support for student religious organizations from different faith traditions.
2C: Expand opportunities for intentional and informed engagement between those of dissimilar backgrounds, identities and viewpoints
- Sustained Dialogue Conversations
- Cultural Conversations Series (Fall 2018).
- Coffee Hour Program 2018-2019, Fall 2018
- Bi-weekly Executive Council meetings with 9 multicultural student organizations-
- Martin Luther King Jr. Day programming, and James Reeb lectures
- Community and Connections events focusing on connecting Alumni of Color with Students of Color, hosted in conjunction with CMIE and Piper Center (2017, 2018).
- Dedicated times for the entire community to be led in discussion and self-assessment
2D: Explore issues related to the complexity of our identities through enhanced programming of existing centers and through collaborative programming among them
- Establishment of the Glenn and Myretta Taylor Center for Equity and Inclusion, and expanded staffing for this center
- Events and speakers supported by To Include is To Excel
- Institute for Freedom and Community programming
- Explore ways for centers to partner either with each other or with other groups to enrich programming