Many institutions offer an inclusive curriculum, one that offers courses that introduce students to diverse people, worldviews, and approaches. Today you can find many courses with a diversity focus, and many of them meet graduation requirements. The college setting is ideal for promoting education about diversity because it allows students and faculty of varying backgrounds to come together for the common purpose of learning and critical thinking.

College students have led the movement that resulted in a curriculum that reflects disenfranchised groups such as women, people of color, the elderly, the disabled, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and the transgendered. In public protests, students have demanded the hiring of more instructors from different ethnic groups, the creation of ethnic studies departments, and a variety of initiatives designed to support diverse students academically and socially, including multicultural centers, women’s resource centers, enabling services, and numerous academic-support programs.

In almost all colleges and universities, you will be required to take some general education courses that will expose you to a wide range of topics and issues. We hope that you will take a course or two with a multicultural focus. Such courses can provide you with new perspectives and an understanding of issues that affect your fellow students and community members. They can also affect you, possibly in ways you had not considered. Just as your college or university campus is diverse, so too is the workforce you will enter. Therefore, a multicultural education can improve the quality of your entire life.