The student government at the University of California, Riverside has approved a resolution calling on school officials to require all undergraduate students to complete in order to graduate.
A gender studies ad hoc committee within the taxpayer-funded school’s Academic Senate will now determine if the full Academic Senate, UC Riverside’s faculty governing body, will vote on the gender studies requirement, according to Campus Reform.
The new, compulsory gender studies course would replace one of the humanities courses students must take to fulfill graduation requirements. Thus, the requirement “would not increase graduation time,” according to Summer Shafer, a UC Riverside senior who largely instigated the student government vote on the mandatory gender studies course.
Shafer told The Highlander, the UC Riverside student newspaper, that the public school offers “over 300” existing courses covering an array of subjects from “masculinity studies to Beyonce” which would fit the gender studies requirement.
“Gender is always a part of our lives,” Shafer pontificated. “A lot of people taking their humanities requirements don’t take the gender classes. We want to increase students’ awareness to gender issues and also to take some interesting and fun classes.”
UC Riverside charges state residents $31,611 each year for tuition, room and board. Students from other states pay considerably higher tuition rates.
UC Riverside ethnic studies professor Dylan Rodriguez, the Academic Senate chairman, expressed optimism about a requirement making every student take a gender studies class.
“While there is no such thing as a guarantee,” Rodriguez told The Highlander. “I believe this proposal will eventually pass.”
Rodriguez is the author of two books including “Suspended Apocalypse: White Supremacy, Genocide, and the Filipino Condition.”
The professor’s Facebook likes include convicted cop killer Mumia Abu Jamal, former U.S. Communist Party leader Angela Davis and Beautiful Me(s): Finding our Revolutionary Selves in Black Cuba.
UC Riverside would be the first school in the taxpayer-funded University of California system to require all students to complete a gender studies course. (RELATED: Loopy Feminist Website Says It’s About To Shut Down, Admits No One Cares)
Only three colleges and universities in the United States require students to complete gender studies courses in order to graduate, according to Campus Reform.
The UC Riverside requirement would affect incoming freshman students beginning the year after the faculty senate group’s approval.
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