Hamilton and Diversity

Hamilton College is located in Clinton, New York.

Yes, we want to see “Hamilton” the musical too. Who doesn’t? But this particular post is about Hamilton College! Hamilton College, a school that regularly makes the short list of most expensive colleges in America and appears among the more selective liberal arts colleges in the annual “US News & World Report” rankings, will be adding new graduation requirements beginning in 2017-2018. And that graduation requirement is: diversity. That’s right. Diversity. At a recent faculty meeting, a proposal to add a diversity graduation requirement was passed by a margin of 80-19. Maybe it was the Black Lives Matter movement on campus that inspired the vote. Or maybe it was the economics department’s proposal to offer economics coursework that focuses on diversity and inclusion. Or maybe it was a combination of factors but it is rather unusual for a school to have a diversity requirement for graduation. Perhaps it’ll mark a new trend across college campuses in America?

As reported by Colleen Flaherty for “Inside Higher Ed,” “Like many campuses, Hamilton College in New York has over the past two years faced criticism from student protesters that it isn’t doing enough to honor its commitment to inclusion. Unlike many such campuses, Hamilton adopted a new curriculum requirement that all concentrations, or majors, feature relevant, mandatory course work on diversity.”

This diversity requirement impacts students across majors. Indeed every major will soon have a diversity requirement so that students can “gain an understanding of structural and institutional hierarchies based on one or more of the social categories of race, class, gender, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexuality, age and abilities/disabilities,” as described in Hamilton’s “Periodic Review Report” of June 1, 2016.

What do our readers think about this new diversity requirement at Hamilton College? We’re curious to hear from you so post a Comment below and we’ll be sure to write back.