EPC Policies on Courses

EPC wishes to reaffirm the campus's commitment to non-discrimination on the basis of race, gender and ethnicity, and to remind departments that this commitment extends to other personal characteristics such as country of birth, cultural upbringing, childhood language, and other features of background.

Accordingly, EPC wishes to remind departments that course prerequisites and description of a course's target audience should be based not on unalterable background characteristics such as race, gender, or heritage, but on criteria of academic accomplishment.  For example, course prerequisites should not read "native speaker of _____", but should read "oral proficiency in _____".  Similarly, course descriptions should not read "intended for students of _____ heritage" or "intended for heritage speakers of _____", but should read "intended for students with oral proficiency in _____" or "intended for students with oral proficiency in _____ but who have not necessarily had formal grammatical or written training in that language."

EPC recognizes that many other institutions-even some other educational institutions-may base their membership criteria, admission criteria, or course qualifications on personal attributes such as race, gender or heritage.  The fact that other institutions may adopt such practices should not and does not alter the campus's own commitment to nondiscrimination as described above.