A Complex Mission
Becoming a genuinely multicultural academic community entails, among other things, continuing efforts to find appropriate ways of incorporating awareness (including knowledge, appreciation, and evaluation) of other cultures and traditions into departmental courses and into the curriculum; to find appropriate ways of becoming more self-consciously aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the cultures and traditions which have shaped this college in the past; to find appropriate ways of recruiting, retaining, and graduating more students from a variety of cultures and backgrounds; to find appropriate ways of recruiting more faculty, staff, and administrators from a variety of cultures and backgrounds; and to develop an ethos at Calvin College in which justice and peace prevail, a climate which allows diverse peoples and cultures to thrive.
The issues related to multicultural awareness in an academic community are complex, often controversial, and in process, so that no brief statement can pretend to address these issues in a comprehensive way. We trust that the principles we invoke and affirm are enduring; some of the applications will undergo continuing evaluation and modification. This brief description of the multicultural dimension of Calvin College will itself very likely be modified and improved.