Starting fall 2011, freshmen in the College of Arts and Sciences will have an additional core requirement. While current students are only required to complete one cultural diversity course, next year’s freshman will be required to complete two courses.

“The faculty felt we’re worried about the increasing internationalization of everything,” said Fr. Michael Barber S. J., Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “In addition, it [the requirement change] happened in accordance with last year’s [diversity] events.”

The new requirement will be broken up into two categories: U.S. Diversity and Global Diversity.

“The more we know how to relate to people in our culture, the better we can relate to people in other cultures, and vice versa,” Barber said.

The change was an idea from the previous dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Donald Brennan.

Although the change will not affect any current students, it is providing a considerable amount of paperwork for faculty.

“The faculty has to resubmit all the courses for cultural diversity,” Barber said. “The faculty is engaged in showing how all kinds of courses will meet that requirement.”

The required paperwork is causing quite a stir within the English department.

“Based on the last faculty meeting, people were left just a little uncertain,” Joya Uraizee, associate professor of English and affiliate faculty with international studies said.

To gain status to meet the requirement, forms must be filled out explaining how the course meets either new categories of cultural diversity, along with a section  that quantifies the amount of time spent on each topic.

Uraizee said that quantifying topics within English is proving to be difficult.

“It may have less to do with what and how you’re teaching, and more with how you fill out paper[work],” said Uraizee.

One major concern of the new requirement is whether or not classes that previously counted will make the grade.

“There will be some classes that used to count for cultural diversity that probably won’t count under the new [requirements],” Ellen Carnaghan, professor of political science and chair of the political science department said. “There will probably be some shifting around.”

Carnaghan was on the Core Curriculum Committee when this change came to pass.

“We spent a lot of time discussing it,” Carnaghan said. “There were some people who objected.”

According to Carnaghan, the idea was first discussed by the old committee, then the Faculty Council, then the Core Curriculum Committee, and then handed back to the Faculty Council who voted the concept into place.

Carnaghan said the sciences department seemed the most concerned, as many students within that college already have an extremely full schedule with little room for change.

“The concerns were fairly practical; not about the essence of the requirement, but whether or not there would be enough to choose from,” said Carnaghan.