Click here for the Multicultural Studies Course Application.

MULTICULTURAL STUDIES COURSES

“Culture” includes, but is not limited to, the cumulative knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, language, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, social activities, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people over time.

Students in Multicultural Studies (MC) courses at Marshall University engage in critical thinking about their own and other cultures.  They learn to explain and examine some of the elements of multiple cultures, past and present.  Multicultural Studies courses encourage students to compare their own cultures with other cultures, enabling them to evaluate their own.

 

Multicultural Course Assessment

Departments develop courses for Multicultural Studies credit.  Departments maintain oversight of instructors of their Multicultural Studies (MC) courses.  Departments are responsible for assessing MC student outcomes for their courses as part of Annual Assessment Reports and Five Year Program Reviews.

Multicultural Designator Five-Year Recertification

Five years after a course gains the designation as part of the Core Curriculum, departments must resubmit the course to the General Education Council for recertification via the expedited curricular path (department -> GEC -> registrar).  The date of the final semester that courses hold their designation can be found on the page listing  International and Multicultural courses.  Departments must apply to revalidate the course early enough so that the GEC and the registrar will have time process the application before the course list for the next semester is generated.

Multicultural Course Designation

• A course may be either International or Multicultural but not both.

 

Submissions must include…

(1)    A detailed, completed Multicultural Course Application
(2)    A detailed sample syllabus which includes

a.       A list of typical assignments and assessments tied to MC learning outcomes;
b.      A list of typical readings; and
c.       A weekly schedule of activities.

Finding the Right Route

Based on the past relationship of the course to the designator, applications will follow one of two curricular paths (standard or expedited, explained below).   Past course relationships to the designator are of four kinds:

1.       The course (regardless of instructor or section) holds the designation in the registrar’s master course list in Banner OR courses that over the last five years have consistently held the MC designator even though not appearing on the master list.   These courses will continue receive the designation automatically through Spring 2013.  However, departments must reapply for the designation under the new guidelines by December 7, 2012, via the expedited curricular path.  If the General Education Council (GEC) has not received the application by December 7, 2012, the designation will be lost after the Spring 2013 semester, and the designation can only be regained by applying to the standard curricular path.

2.       If sections of a course held multicultural status on a semester by semester basis based on professor and departmental request to the registrar, these courses must follow the standard curricular process.

3.       If a course has never held the designator, applications must follow the standard curricular process.

4.       Departmental special topics courses or occasional courses appearing as HON in the honors college (e.g., those courses that faculty propose to the Honors college to teach for one semester versus established Honors courses or courses in other departments marked as honors, such as ENG 201H) may apply for the multicultural designator using the expedited curricular path.

Expedited Curricular Path: The department chair needs to email the application to theGeneral Education Council (gened@marshall.edu), which will then review the application and send the registrar a message confirming the course’s designation.

Standard Curricular path: Check the Multicultural Studies box on the UCC Course Addition or Change Form.  In addition to the requirements listed on the UCC Course Addition or Change Form, submissions must include the documents listed above.  These courses and course changes must be approved by the following:

1. College curriculum committee
2. General Education Council
3. University Curriculum Committee
4. Faculty Senate.

 

The difference between MC and INTL Courses

There are several common characteristics between International and Multicultural courses, and thus when an instructor wishes to apply for the “INTL” or “MC” attribute to be applied to a course they teach, it can be challenging to determine which of the two designations should be sought.

In the table below, the General Education Council provides its understanding of some of the key differences between International and Multicultural courses. This information is provided in hopes that it may help guide instructors in knowing which designation to apply for, and in better understanding which characteristics should be demonstrated in the syllabi and course application materials that are provided to the General Education Council.

 

Characteristic	International	Multicultural
Time	At least 50% of content must focus on the current1 world	Content may include the past and/or present cultures
Location	At least 50% of content must cover topics beyond US borders	Coverage may include cultures within the US.
Focus	May focus on a single region / country	Must include multiple cultures beyond students’ own

 

¹Note: the definition of the “current world” is not explicitly defined, since it may vary by country, region, or issue.  For example, in Norway ‘the current world’ might be since 1905, when Norway became independent of Sweden.  By contrast, in the United Arab Emirates, ‘the current world’ might be since 1971, when the country was founded.