REQUIREMENT ADDED FOR DIVERSITY CLASS.

Byline: Eugene Tong  Staff Writer

VALENCIA - College of the Canyons' incoming freshman class will have to meet a new diversity requirement in order to graduate, according to curriculum changes approved last week by the board of trustees.

Under the requirement to be enacted beginning the 2004-05 school year, all new students must take a minimum three-unit course on such subjects as global community and ethnicity to language, anthropology, sociology and the disabled before receiving an associate's degree.

Students in the registered nursing and licensed vocational nursing programs are exempt.

``We decided to take a broad view, so that diversity is simply more than racial diversity,'' said Michael Dermody, president of the college's Academic Senate. ``It's also issues of gender and age.

``The concern was that we didn't want to add any additional classes, so some of the courses on the diversity list already fulfill other requirements at the same time,'' he said.

The Academic Senate - the college's faculty and curriculum council - composed the requirement presented before the Santa Clarita Community College District trustees after about a year of deliberations, Dermody said Tuesday.

The move attempts to align College of the Canyons' curriculum with that of other public colleges. The University of California and the California State University systems and most local community colleges have diversity graduation requirements, said Dermody, a history professor.

``The state is becoming a more diverse society, and our students will be living and working in this diversified state,'' he said.

The senate last week approved 45 courses compiled by its curriculum committee for the requirement. Each course - from Cultural Anthropology and Chicano Culture to Mythology, Human Sexuality and American Deaf Culture - must devote at least 50 percent of its content to such general issues of gender, diversity and equity, and challenge the student's critical thinking skills on these topics.

``The courses aren't being changed any,'' committee chairwoman Deanna Davis said. ``We just identified courses that already exist, that have an extensive amount of material that cover diversity issues. Quite a few of them are already used for general (education requirements) for a number of students. That's why we felt the requirement wouldn't be a burden for students.

``Students in our society today, in order to be successful, need to have these skills in order to understand and maneuver in a multicultural society,'' said Davis, also an English teacher at the college.

This list will expand as new classes are added and old classes change, Dermody said.

``Every three or four years, we review all the classes, and other classes may be updated and put on the list,'' he said.

Eugene Tong, [phone]

eugene.tong(at)dailynews.com