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Diversity-Justice (D-J) Course Requirement

Apply to the Diversity Justice Requirement Fund

The mission of the D-J Requirement fund is to support faculty in their efforts to infuse diversity and justice content into their courses and to support them in the process of applying to get these courses D-J designated. Funds can be used for: faculty time (such as supplemental summer pay or course buy-outs dependent on departmental approval), books, online resources, off-site training, hosting a training or workshop at Loyola, etc. Applicants can be individual faculty members, groups of faculty members, a department, a division, etc. For example, an individual faculty member might apply to purchase books or pay for specific training to help them design a new D-J course, whereas a department might apply to fund hosting a workshop that would facilitate the development of a number of D-J courses or facilitate conceptualization and implementation of how the major D-J requirement can best be achieved for majors in their department. 
 
Applications will be reviewed by the Diversity Justice Course Requirement Committee and will be accepted on a rolling basis with review beginning Feb 1st, 2024 (applications will continue to be accepted/reviewed beyond this date). To apply, please complete the questions provided in Teams Forms at this link.  If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Diversity-Justice Requirement Committee at djreqcommittee@loyola.edu, or Jason Prenoveau at jmprenoveau@loyola.edu.  

Overview

The Diversity-Justice requirement is one way in which Loyola University Maryland carries out its mission to prepare students to learn, lead, and serve in a diverse and changing world. Loyola University Maryland's core values and learning aims call upon the curriculum to prepare students to be aware of, appreciate, and celebrate human differences and their consequences at the individual, social, cultural, and global levels and to dedicate themselves to develop a sense of solidarity with and care for all who struggle for justice. To help achieve these core values and learning aims, students admitted to Loyola under the AY24-25 Academic Catalogue and later are required to successfully complete two Diversity-Justice designated courses anywhere in their curriculum (it is one Diversity designated course for those admitted under earlier Academic Catalogues).

Diversity-Justice designated course sections are identified in the Course Catalog under Course Types. Although a listing of recent courses that have been Diversity-Justice designated can be found here, it should be noted that not all sections of these courses will necessarily be Diversity-Justice designated.

While other courses throughout the curriculum will touch on diversity and justice-related issues, diversity-justice course designation is reserved for those courses with particular depth of inquiry.

Application Process

Diversity-Justice designation applies to specific course materials that have been approved by the Diversity-Justice Requirement Committee. Designation does not attach to a particular course number, for which there may be sections with and without Diversity-Justice designation. Once course materials have been approved, they are permanently Diversity-Justice designated and do not need to be renewed. It is the Department Chair’s responsibility to assure that any Diversity-Justice designated sections use approved materials and have an appropriate instructor. All course materials that have been Diversity designated in the past will automatically receive Diversity-Justice designation.

  • Click here to Apply for Diversity-Justice Designation for your Course
    • Courses should have a substantial focus on Diversity-Justice learning aims.
    • Application includes:
      • Course learning aims and a brief description of how these are congruent with one or more Diversity-Justice learning aims. 
      • A brief narrative explaining how the Diversity-Justice learning aim(s) are reflected in the course (e.g., topics, readings, methodologies, and evaluation methods).
      • A course syllabus with all Diversity-Justice content (e.g., learning aims, topics, readings, methodologies, and evaluation methods) highlighted.
    • The Diversity-Justice Requirement Committee reviews applications year-round and provides any feedback that needs to be addressed for successful designation in a timely manner.
    • Links to past successful applications, along with comments about specific things the committee is looking for, can be found below.
    • Although courses will no longer be categorized as done in the past (global, domestic, justice), courses are still eligible for Diversity-Justice designation if there is a substantial focus on only one of these three areas. 
    • Please contact the Diversity-Justice Requirement Committee with any questions or concerns. We are here to help you!
  • Diversity Course Requirement Aims and Outcomes 
  • Some tips for Applications
    • Applications often do an amazing job spelling out the Diversity-Justice aims and highlighting how these aims will be addressed in the course content. However, some applications do not spell out how these Diversity-Justice learning aims will be incorporated into course assessments. While this can be done in the narrative response, it is also helpful for this to be briefly incorporated into the syllabus as well. This enables students to see how their assessments will be explicitly linked to Diversity-Justice learning aims.
    • We would like students to know right up front that they are taking a Diversity-Justice designated course, as well as a little bit about what makes the course Diversity-Justice designated. To this end, the Committee would love to see an explicit statement to this effect near the start of the syllabus. For example: This course is a Diversity-Justice designated course and fulfills a Diversity-Justice course requirement for graduation. Diversity-Justice designated courses increase students' awareness and critical understanding of human diversity and justice, contributing to the university mission "to inspire students to learn, lead, and serve in a diverse and changing world." Specifically, this course focuses on . . .
Sample Successful Diversity-Justice Applications (Final syllabi after feedback has been addressed)
Links to application samples
Course  Sample Application
AC 421, Auditing  Sample Application
BL 101, Introduction to Forensic Science with Lab Sample Application
EN 366, Dissent in American Literature Sample Application
TH 388, Eastern Christianity and Islam Sample Application

 

History of the Diversity-Justice Requirement at Loyola

2002

The initial requirement – the Diversity Course Requirement – was adopted by the Academic Senate after a broad and collaborative effort among academic departments and individual faculty and administrators. After a series of faculty meetings to discuss the need for and nature of a diversity requirement for the campus in early 2002, the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (UCC) invited faculty to submit full proposals for a requirement. During fall 2002, the UCC discussed three proposals and a survey of comparable university’s curricular diversity requirements, and decided to move forward with modifications of one of the proposals. Faculty committees and academic administrators contributed to revisions of the proposal through the spring 2003 semester, submitting a draft to the UCC in May 2003. Once the UCC approved the draft, it was forwarded to the Academic Senate in September 2003. After vigorous deliberation, the Academic Senate passed the proposed diversity course requirement in March 2004. The Diversity Course Requirement became a graduation requirement for all undergraduate students beginning with the Class of 2010.

2010

In March 2010, the UCC Subcommittee on Diversity (UCCSD) undertook a comprehensive review of the requirement, including an audit of diversity-designated courses, survey data, and consultation of the original Senate documents. They issued a 60-page report that included several recommendations and appendices. (Report available from current UCC Chair.) The Academic Senate used that subcommittee report to create a charge for an ad hoc Committee to Review the Diversity Course Requirement.  That ad hoc committee: revised the definitions of the diversity categories, created related learning aims, affirmed that faculty must apply under one category, and devised a renewal process that mirror the application process (per original Academic Senate mandate). The committee also proposed two mandatory questions on the student evaluation form of any diversity-designated course, which can inform a faculty member’s reflection in the renewal process and may play a role in a future assessment of the university-wide diversity learning aim. After some debate and clarifications, the Academic Senate accepted the ad hoc committee’s report and approved the recommendations on December 4, 2012. The UCCSD began to use the new materials in spring 2011 and began the four-semester process of catching up on the backlog of renewals. The Office of Institutional Research administers the two diversity questions on student evaluation forms for all diversity-designated courses.

2020

In response to concerns that the undergraduate Diversity Course Requirement was not adequately contributing to addressing student Diversity and Justice learning aims, Loyola University Maryland formed the inaugural Faculty Equity and Inclusion Fellows in AY 2020-21. As detailed in their Final Report, an interdisciplinary subgroup of these Fellows recommended a number of changes to the Diversity Course Requirement, based on primary and secondary data they collected from internal and external sources. An interdisciplinary subgroup of Faculty Equity and Inclusion Fellows in AY 2021-22 were tasked with implementing these recommendations. As detailed in their Final Report, several steps were taken to refine the recommendations based on stakeholder input: student and faculty listening sessions were held, the UCC was repeatedly consulted, and meetings were held with key administrators (e.g., the Provost, Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer, and Diversity and Inclusion Specialist).

2022

Based upon this feedback, it was proposed that administration of the Diversity Course Requirement be moved from the UCCSD to a newly created Diversity Course Requirement Committee. The change was to allow Diversity Course Requirement Committee members to focus on administering the Diversity Course Requirement without the added labor and time burden of being a UCC member. The proposal to create this Committee successfully passed through the governance process in Spring of 2022 and this Committee was populated by the Faculty Affairs Committee and began meeting in Fall of 2022. This committee was charged with administering the Diversity Course Requirement, reviewing proposals, assessing outcomes, suggesting changes related to the requirement, and overseeing potential changes to the requirement that are approved through appropriate governance channels.

Also based upon this feedback, a proposal for curricular changes to the Diversity Course Requirement was drafted, garnered unanimous approval by the UCC in the Spring of 2022, and was submitted to the Chair of the Faculty in April 2022, presented to the ECG in October 2022, and brought before Loyola’s academic senate in February 2023. Revisions to the proposal were made in response to feedback from Academic Senators and their constituents. The Academic Senate voted to consider the motion with these revisions in April of 2023 and passed this motion in May 2024.

Although the full details can be found in the Senate Motion, here is a summary of the changes: the Diversity Course Requirement was renamed the Diversity-Justice Requirement to highlight the importance of social justice in our undergraduate curriculum and to better align with Loyola’s core values. Students joining Loyola under the AY2024-2025 Catalogue and beyond are required to successfully complete two Diversity-Justice designated courses anywhere in their curriculum. Students joining Loyola under the AY2027-2028 Catalogue and beyond will be required to successfully complete three Diversity-Justice designated courses with one in their major and the other two anywhere in their curriculum.

Additional information

The UCC conducts periodic audits to assure sufficient offerings to enable students to graduate with reasonable planning, in consultation with academic deans who sit on the UCC. Assessment for individual courses happens at the Department level. Any future University-level assessment of the diversity learning aim should account for the significant contribution of the Diversity Course Requirement.
2004 initial creation of Diversity Course Requirement 
Approved by the UCC May 2003. Approved by the Academic Senate March 2004.
2012 report on the Diversity Course Requirement   
Submitted by the Ad Hoc Committee to Review the Diversity Course Requirement. Approved by the Academic Senate December 4, 2012