Diversity

The unit is strategic and comprehensive in its efforts to maintain a democratic environment free of discrimination and harassment. Its Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment Policy publically demonstrates our committment to diverse populations and an ethic of care with which we treat our colleagues, candidates, alumni, and all others. Additionally, the unit is committed to recruiting and retaining diverse candidates and faculty across all lines including race, religion, sex, disability, national origin, geography, and sexual orientation. Because of its efforts, for example, the number of candidates of color has increased 18% over the past three years. As well, the number of faculty of color has increased 33% over the past three years.

Candidates in all programs are expected to demonstrate an understanding of the purposes of education and demonstrate the ability to engage in the ongoing processes of reflection and dialog that lie at the heart of socially-responsible, theoretically-informed, and research-based effective practice (http://education.ua.edu/ncate/cf.html). Embedded in this framework is an expectation that candidates demonstrate the ability to work effectively with peers, students, families, and communities which are different from their own and critically reflect on and self-assess their work. Specifically related to diversity, candidates are expected to demonstrate the following dispositions:

1. Promote the cognitive, emotional, social, and physical well-being of all students.

2. Use students’ unique prior knowledge, life experiences, and interests as part of the context for teaching and learning.

3. Create classroom environments that promote excellent and equitable learning opportunities which motivate all students to learn.

4. Establish a democratic and just environment, with respect for diversity, through culturally responsive teaching.

I cannot be a teacher if I do not perceive with ever greater clarity that my practice demands of me a definition about where I stand. A break with what is not right ethically. I must choose between one thing and another thing. I cannot be a teacher and be in favor of everyone and everything. I cannot be in favor merely of people, humanity, vague phrases far from the concrete nature of educative practice. Mass hunger and unemployment, side by side with opulence, are not the result of destiny, as certain reactionary circles would have us believe, claiming that people suffer because they can do nothing about the situation. The question here is not “destiny”. It is immorality. Here I want to repeat – forcefully – that nothing can justify the degradation of human beings. Nothing.

Paulo Freire