DR. DEBRA HUMPHREYS
Cultural Diversity Presentation
Diversity and General Education: National Trends and the Impact on Student Learning
 

After decades of work, campuses across the country are now seeing the impact that diversifying the campus and the curriculum is having on key learning outcomes. This presentation will set the work of diversifying the curriculum in the context of broad national trends in general education reform. It will also provide an overview of the different frameworks campuses are using across the country to incorporate issues of diversity into campus life and the general education curriculum. Aspects of the presentation will focus on different designs and the impact the diversification of the campus and the curriculum is having on student learning outcomes. Finally, it will present some of the challenges campuses are facing, questions that remain to be answered, and “frontier” issues of concern, including issues addressing the interrelations among U.S. diversity and global learning goals.

Cultural Diversity Breakout Session
Diversity in the Classroom and the Curriculum: Multiple Strategies for Maximizing Impact

This workshop will begin with a discussion to identify and prioritize specific learning outcomes related to the University's general education diversity goals and where in the curriculum these goals are being met. Participants will then explore the challenge of diversifying course content and teaching strategies to advance university-wide general education goals. Participants will clarify what is working and what is not in campus efforts to reach key learning outcomes and ways that individuals can contribute to reaching these outcomes, whatever their specific discipline or department. Participants will examine a variety of ways to reach diversity learning goals in their own courses and in collaboration with colleagues across the campus. Using examples from a variety of campus and curricular models from around the country, participants will explore questions all faculty should ask about diversity in their courses and in their classrooms and strategies for addressing diversity in a variety of disciplines.

Bio - Dr. Debra Humphreys - website
 

Dr. Debra Humphreys is currently the Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs at the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Prior to 2001, she served as Director of Programs in the Office of Diversity, Equity and Global Initiatives at AAC&U where she directed programs on diversity and women's issues in higher education. She also served as Editor of the quarterly, Diversity Digest

Dr. Humphreys served as Project Director for two of AAC&U's national diversity initiatives, Racial Legacies and Learning: An American Dialogue and Diversity Works. Racial Legacies was a project designed to foster learning and dialogue about America's racial legacies and involved more than 80 colleges and universities all working to develop innovative campus diversity learning programs and campus-community partnerships. She also served as Associate Director of AAC&U's other national initiative, American Commitment: Diversity, Democracy and Liberal Learning which involved more than 100 institutions working to transform their general education curricula to address issues of American diversity and democracy. She is the author of the project's report, General Education and American Commitments: A National Report on Diversity Courses and Requirements. Her most recent publications include “Interdisciplinarity, Diversity, and the Future of Liberal Education”, in Innovations in Interdisciplinary Teaching , edited by Carolyn Haynes and published by ACE/Oryx Press in 2002, and “Public and Private Universities,” in Four-Year Colleges 2004 , forthcoming from Peterson's/Thomson.

Dr. Humphreys has been an educational consultant at numerous colleges and universities with a special interest in faculty and curriculum development and has conducted faculty workshops on teaching and learning issues and especially on the process of developing diversity courses and requirements. She serves on the editorial advisory board of University Business. In addition to her expertise on general education and campus diversity issues, she has written, taught, and published on African American women's literature, immigrant women's literature, and women and American film history.

Before coming to AAC&U in 1992, Dr. Humphreys had experience teaching Women's Studies and English at Rutgers University, Towson State University, and at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County. She also served as Program Associate at the National Women's Studies Association. Dr. Humphreys received her BA from Williams College and her PhD in English from Rutgers University .