A history professor is creating a new course on black cultural history from slavery to the present. A communications professor is revising a course on U.S. presidents to include presidents’ statements and writings on race and gender issues—and various constituents’ responses. A drama professor is revising a course on dialect to incorporate more ethnic variation. Across campus, faculty are redesigning their courses as part of the UW’s Curriculum Transformation Project.

The project, introduced in 1992 with support from the Ford Foundation, provides resources to help faculty incorporate the study of race, class, gender, and ethnicity in their courses. More than 100 faculty have created or revised courses as a result.

"Two groups of faculty have been particularly interested,” says Betty Schmitz, director of the Curriculum Transformation Project, which is based in the College of Arts and Sciences. “There are senior faculty who have become aware of the transformative power of this new scholarship and are eager to revamp their courses based on these new perspectives. Then there are new faculty who are immersed in the complexities of race, class, and gender and are eager to get funding to develop new courses. It’s the interaction between these two groups that makes this so dynamic.”

From the beginning, undergraduates have been part of the project, working collaboratively with faculty on course redesign. Schmitz now offers an undergraduate American Ethnic Studies course, “Transforming the Curriculum,” that provides a framework for the student-faculty collaborations.

“Students have important information to contribute about their learning,” says Schmitz. “It’s been great to see how much faculty welcome the students’ insights. This collaboration is the crux of the program. It’s what makes the program go.”

Thanks to another grant from the Ford Foundation, more faculty will be able to work on course development through the Curriculum Transformation Project. The Ford Foundation awarded the program a three-year, $450,000 grant in January 2001.

[Winter/Spring 2001 - Table of Contents]