THE
NOTMAD GROUP
The NOTMAD group was formed in March 1998 at Park College by a group of instructors interested in incoporpating and implementing multiculturalism in their pedagogy.
How
We Got Started
Park College is part of a consortium of colleges which pool in for faculty and staff development workshops and seminars among other things. This consortium is called KCPDC - Kansas City Professional Development Council. It has approximately eight members some of which are (alphabetically), Baker University, Central Missouri State University, Kansas City Community College Kansas and Penn Valley Community College. One of the workshops planned for the past three consecutive years is the Master Teacher International Multicultural Workshop.
This workshop is approximately two days long and provides intense training to faculty and staff who may be interested in learning about diversity on campus, incorporation of multiculturalism in their curriculum, how to obtain funding for changing the syllabus, how to get started with multiculturalism and of course not to forget - what the heck is multiculturalism anyway!! On average nine faculty members from Park College have attended this workshop every year.*
Last year in 1997, I went for the first time to this workshop and learned in quite detail about incorporation of multiculturalism in my course (Introductory Chemistry: Chemistry for the Health Sciences). I also proceeded to become a committee member for the Workshop in 1997 and helped organize the 1998 Multicultural workshop.
After attending the second workshop I realized that each individual college has the responsibility to keep the spirit of the workshop alive hence I decided to initiate an informal luncheon for the participants of the workshop.
*Park College has been involved with multiculturalism and global issues for the past four years ever since it obtained a major grant from Eli Lilly Corporation. This grant provided funding for training of faculty, purchase of new books and other pedagogical needs for inlcuding multiculturalism in the courses.
Continuing
The Work
Our first meeting in March took off well by the eight faculty who attended and we decided to formalize the group to make it official. The name of the group NOTMAD was selected unanimously.
Our
Policy
This group will remain informal in its meetings. I am responsible for arranging the meeting, selecting the venue, taking down the minutes and keeping everyone in the group updated.
Our polcies are to :
- Meet for lunch once a month;
- Discuss the various techniques the instructors are using for including multiculturalism in their curriculum;
- Discuss how to improve recruitment and retention of minority students, staff and faculty;
- Guide new faculty in incorporating multiculturualism in their curriculum;
The
Rythm of the Meetings
So far we have met three times and have come up with good points:
- the KCPDC International Multicultural Workshop is a good thing and should be continued every year. It gives the faculty the opportunity to meet with other faculty from other colleges and institutions and discuss pedagogy at length without a time inhibition.
- we should keep meeting even if we have nothing major to discuss to keep the rythm going.
- we should go out to recruit minority students in the Kansas City High Schools.
Interesting
Sites for Multiculturalism
These are my choices of course. You may find more sites on one of the sites below or by doing a search on the net.
So here is my two cents worth of good sites......not in any particular order (however the ones with asterisks are the ones I found very easy to read, organized and a good site for general info - remember this is only my opinion).
1 http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/gss/module/multi.htm some good sites on issues of race, god etc.
2 Race; Multiculturalism; Racism; Ethnicity; Ethics :Resource web page, has info on articles, books ethics racism recent laws human rights; Resource on multiculturalism; Affirmative action (Some links have expired)
3 VISIONS & MULTICULTURALISM : Visions: a company that provides training on multiculturalism.
4 http://www.siue.edu/~english/Listserv/multi.html A bunch of Listservs to get on discussion about multicultural issues.
5* Multiculturalism/utexas : Views on culture, web sites and links, books and articles, publisher list. Has a page for "creativity" and how to improve it (for students). Excellent site, very organized and easy to read.
6* MilbankWeb: Research Resources: Pathfinders: Multicultural Education : Provides resource page with links to printed recources (journals and books) , electronic database (electronic journals), internet links, organizations and associations, Listserv etc. Good place to get started.
7 http://www.isomedia.com/homes/jmele/homepage.html For book reviews and links to other web pages
8* Evidence of Democratic Principles and Multiculturalism in Our Schools : Touches on more issues like gender equality, gay lesbian, disability and African Hispanic Asian American cultures.
9 Multiculturalism and Cultural Diversity Links : Cultural diversity and multiculture: another place for finding good links depending on interest.
10 Speak Out: Multiculturalism : A number of speakers who promote and educate about diversity; Good site if you are looking to invite a speaker
11 Multiculturalism : TV shows that can be used to teach multiculturalism.
12* Diversity & Multiculturalism in International Areas : An excellent site about diversity issues internationally e.g. white ver black jews in Israel Shiites cs Sunni in Pakistan; the Algerian conflict; racism in Australia; current issues
13 The Mining Company :A number if links for books movies articles issues, interesting site for mulitcultural education
15 Multiculturalism : International multicultures
16 Umbrella Press/multicult. books : Umbrella press - books on multiculturalism
17 The New Australian v1n5 : The multicultural Australia
18 MULTICULTURALISM AND HEALTH in australia : Multicultural Australia dealing with health issues