SOCIAL DIVERSITY
IN THE GEOGRAPHY CURRICULUM
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ALUMNI PANELS
On Thursday 19 April 2001, five UW Geography alumni, currently working
in the public or quasi-public sectors, formed a panel to discuss self-representation,
as geographers, in the negotiation of a career. This was done as
part of Geography 495C, Intellectual
and Professional Development for Geographers. Among the questions
posed to the panel was
"What could or should happen in colleges in order for graduates
to be able to operate successfully in a socially diverse workplace and
client base?" The responses included:
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| To build working teams with members from different backgrounds | Instructors could assign or encourage project teams to include students of different genders, ages, and ethnicities. |
| To pull contributions from people with different skills and different world views | Take advantage of opportunities for interaction: in classes, in social contexts, in campus organizations. |
| Awareness of the complex ways that gender, age, ethnicity interact in individuals and their ways of working and communicating | "Pay attention in class" to the interactions among students and the ways in which different students perceive and react to subject matter and to each other. |
| To recognize one's own comfort with differences | Become aware of our own individual reactions. |
| Not to "try so hard" | Immerse oneself in getting tasks accomplished in groups. |