Curriculum Diversity within Higher Education — Presentation Detail — Celebration of Scholars

Instructions

Student presentations must have a faculty sponsor.

Abstracts must include a title and a description of the research, scholarship, or creative work. The description should be 150-225 words in length and constructed in a format or style appropriate for the presenter’s discipline.

The following points should be addressed within the selected format or style for the abstract:

A clear statement of the problem or question you pursued, or the scholarly goal or creative theme achieved in your work.
A brief comment about the significance or uniqueness of the work.
A clear description of the methods used to achieve the purpose or goals for the work.
A statement of the conclusions, results, outcomes, or recommendations, or if the work is still in progress, the results you expect to report at the event.

Presenter photographs should be head and shoulder shots comparable to passport photos.

Additional Information

More information is available at carthage.edu/celebration-scholars/. The following are members of the Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Committee who are eager to listen to ideas and answer questions:

Jun Wang
Kim Instenes
John Kirk
Nora Nickels
Andrew Pustina
James Ripley

Curriculum Diversity within Higher Education

Name: Cheyanne Stage
Major: Sociology
Hometown: Downers Grove
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: Senior thesis

Abstract

While universities are becoming much more diverse in regard to their student population, many of the materials and texts being chosen for curriculums are disproportionally written by white, male authors. The purpose of this study was to examine how diverse the syllabi are in higher education institutions. By utilizing the Open Syllabus Project, the syllabi for the Women’s studies programs of the top ten most prestigious private universities and the top ten most prestigious public universities were examined for the diversity of the authors. Through further analysis, it was revealed that the majority of authors whose books were used as curriculum within this discipline were that of white American females with PhD levels of education. The lack of diversity was visible and obvious. Disclosed within the research, recommendations would be to incorporate a vaster number of authors with various backgrounds, identities, lifestyles, and etc. in order to reach students of various backgrounds, identities, lifestyles, and etc. and foster a much more inclusive educational environment.

Poster file