Bergen Community College

Case Study - Spring 2006

History and Context

Founded in 1965, Bergen Community College (BCC) enrolls more than 14,000 students in Associate in Arts, Associate in Science, Associate in Applied Science degree programs, and certificate programs. More than 10,000 students are enrolled in non-credit, professional development courses offered by the Division of Continuing Education and the Philip Ciarco Jr. Learning Center.

BCC’s commitment to diversity formally took shape in 1979 with the creation of the Center of International Studies, which introduced a global perspective to the college. Then in 1983, as ethnic, cultural, and gender differences were becoming more evident on campus, a comprehensive review of curricula determined ways to make instructional programs more inclusive and sensitive to these differences. The Integration Project included faculty and curriculum development activities to integrate new scholarship on gender, race, ethnicity, and class. Efforts grew over the years to include a diversity requirement for transfer programs. In addition to the aforementioned curricular innovations, student activities highlighting cultural diversity also increased.

The college now sponsors an array of cultural heritage celebrations featuring poets, noted speakers, theatrical presentations, and concerts. However, compelling challenges in the rapidly changing community demographics underscore the need to expand, coordinate, and extend the impact of the college's overall diversity effort.

The Bergen Community College Foundation decided to donate 25% of the net proceeds of its 2000 November Medallion Dinner for a fitting 9/11 memorial on campus. Through additional support from The Bildner Family Foundation’s New Jersey Campus Diversity Initiative, the Center for the Study of Intercultural Understanding (CSIU) was created in Fall 2001 as a lasting memorial that would revitalize a long standing commitment to institutional diversity.

Campus Diversity Initiative Model 2002-2006

The Center for the Study of Intercultural Understanding (CSIU) is a centralized structure designed to broaden and deepen campus and community participation to advance Bergen Community College’s (BCC) diversity efforts. Since the inception of the grant in 2001, CSIU has emerged as a visible entity focused around a coherent set of diversity-related activities. Three complementary committees-- focused on curriculum and teaching, co-curricular programming, and community engagement -- guide the work of CSIU.

The main focus of the curriculum and teaching committee is to expand the use of diversity as an educational resource in the classroom. The overarching goal is to establish a year-long seminar in diversity studies, which is expected to have a major impact on the intellectual direction of the project after the grant ends. Generating the grassroots momentum to achieve this goal, the committee offered a series of professional development opportunities. These included minigrants that provided stipends to faculty interested in designing and developing course materials and course content concerning intercultural understanding.

The goal of the co-curricular programming committee has been to utilize the co-curricular events at BCC as an educational resource. To that end, an interdisciplinary group of faculty members included class participants in a variety of multicultural co-curricular activities, including guest diversity artists and scholars. The strategy for garnering faculty participation included offering stipends for them to create co-curricular programs in collaboration with a project coordinator in the Office of Student Life. This integrated faculty activities into the office's calendar of events. Visiting guest artists and scholars presented lecture/demonstrations and workshops for classes in a variety of disciplines focused on the theme of diversity. Additional diversity events were organized throughout the year to tap students’ cultural backgrounds as an educational asset. These included the Café Bergen coffeehouse performance arts series, which featured a variety of musical and dramatic performances highlighting the talent and cultural diversity of students, faculty, staff, and performers from the community. By interacting with students in a classroom setting, these co-curricular activities provided a strong foundation for future grant-funded initiatives to integrate guest artists and scholars into the curriculum.

The goal of the community engagement committee was to become a resource for community members. Through partnerships and sponsorships, CSIU organized workshops for community members in human services, education, and law enforcement. Each of the events were designed to foster intergroup dialogue and meet the needs of both the community and the college. All of these efforts were aimed at making the resources and services of the BCC known and accessible to the community. Networking with community partners has also inspired interdisciplinary projects with faculty and students.

Accomplishments

The Center for the Study of Intercultural Understanding (CSIU) made a significant difference to campus and community life by catalyzing institutional changes. Some of the institutional accomplishments include:

Diversity now figures prominently in the college-wide strategic plan 2006-09.
The newly established Faculty Professional Development Planning Committee plans to focus on teaching and learning with an increasingly diverse student body.
The committee on general education created a subcommittee to study BCC’s current diversity requirement and recommend improvements, which will likely include doubling the number of credits—from 3 to 6—and expanding the number of designated diversity courses.

Under CSIU’s committee on curriculum and teaching, a teaching circle on diversity was held. Twelve participants, including professors from various disciplines, met for discussion of readings and shared experiences in teaching in classrooms where diverse people came together. In addition, two projects were funded:

Women and the Arts (which highlighted outstanding women composers)
Writing about Race in English Composition Courses

The committee on co-curricular programming had significant accomplishments. In addition to Café Bergen, the events surrounding Artist-in-residence Philip Glass, such as lectures on the role of music in film and literature, a lecture for Asian Heritage Week entitled “Asian influence on American music”, and discussions with students who attended “Orion” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music were very well received.

In addition, visiting guest artists and scholars such as Bill Miller and Garland Jeffreys conducted workshops with music and creative writing students on songwriting and the music business. Furthermore, multicultural guest artists (Colombian music, Ugandan music, Native American music) visited music appreciation, anthropology, world literature, and world languages.

The community engagement committee had several accomplishments:

Sponsorship of the Newspapers in Education Cultural Awareness in Education Program. This program is comprised of eight in-paper cross-disciplinary student activities. Each activity introduced and emphasized a different culture, while focusing on skill-building lessons centered on the health, language arts, science, and math curricula, and geared to the middle and high school students
Various student dialogues on diversity facilitated by faculty members to explore issues of identity and cross-cultural communication.
“Intercultural Lunches” on varying topics presented by community members and faculty.
CSIU members also participated in dialogues with the community: Interfaith Dialogue with the Turkish Community and a dialogue on Issues of Racial Understanding with the YWCA.
Panel discussion with Emerson High School Students from their Cultural Diversity Club on “What it means to be an American in a diverse world as ours?”