(Photo: Emily Schneider)
By: Ellie Mulligan, Staff Reporter
As of now, the Integrative Core consists of four courses that must be taken anytime during a Regis student’s Junior or Senior year. However, this policy is about to change. As of the 2018-2019 school year, the RCC400D class, Diversity and Cultural Tradition, will be opened up to sophomores.
“Essentially, if you are attending Regis next year, you should plan on enrolling in RCC400D,” says Dr. Eve Passerini, Director of the Integrative Core. The class will be open to Juniors and Seniors as usual, but upcoming registration for Sophomores will include the option for it as well.
But why, exactly, should Sophomores be taking this course? According to the proposal to open RCC400D to Sophomores, “There is increasing evidence that when diversity instruction is offered early, it creates a more welcoming campus community for all students and prepares students to be more thoughtful citizens of the world.”
By encouraging Sophomores to take this course, professors like Dr. Passerini hope to keep the difficult conversations about diversity, privilege, and oppression from being swept under the rug. In doing so, sophomores taking RCC400D will come closer to the Jesuit mission of creating one reconciled, peaceful family of humanity.
Freshman Sydney Monahan looks forward to the upcoming class. “I think a course like this is important to have as early as possible, and I definitely think that sophomores are capable of understanding a concept like that. It would be really valuable to have that foundation not just as a junior or senior, but as a Regis community member.”
Overall, this change is reflective of the passion for continued learning and understanding shared by all Regis students. Regis President, Fr. John Fitzgibbons, said it best: “As As a Jesuit, Catholic university, we embrace the discomfort of examining our own presumptions, failures, and shortcomings, and, in our engagements with one another, we prepare ourselves to be challenged, strengthened, and transformed…This means exploring not only the dynamics of race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, sexuality, and culture, but also the social and structural implications of privilege, power, and social-political order in America and the wider world.”