Amana served on a committee a year ago that reviewed the requirement. "We weren't entirely satisfied with it because it was extremely broad," he said.
Amana said some cultural diversity courses weren't offered, and others didn't seem to fulfill the requirement based on their course descriptions.
He questioned how many times students took the initiative to interact with someone of a different race. Amana said cultural programs, like UNITAS, a program that attempts to break down cultural barriers by housing roommates based on their cultural and/or racial differences, generally preach to the converted.
"Those are students that would try to do that anyway," he said.
Currently, a University steering committee composed of faculty and students is revamping the general education curriculum, including the cultural diversity requirement, through a three-year review process.
Laurie McNeil, steering committee chairwoman, said the group will think in broader terms besides courses for fulfilling general education requirements. "We certainly don't have the notions that one goal equals one course or one requirement," she said.
The final report from the Cultural Diversity Requirement Committee contained a list of criteria that many students reported their classes as meeting.
The DTH survey showed that 86 percent of students think their course focused on relations between cultures at different times and places. Seventy-nine percent said the course drew connections between those relations and some aspect of current home experience, while 76 percent said it forced them to reflect upon morals in their dealings with people from different backgrounds.
Shallcross, a journalism major from Mendham, N.J., thinks the requirement, implemented in 1994, opens the doors to encouraging cultural diversity.
"I don't think it does enough, but I think it's a step in the right direction," she said. "In my life, cultural diversity hasn't been stressed enough."
Shallcross, who completed Afro- and African-American Studies 40 last semester, said students need to look beyond the classroom environment.
"There's only a certain extent that a textbook can take you. It's about appreciating other people's differences," she said of cultural diversity.
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Other students echoed Shallcross' sentiments. "I don't see how one semester where you meet two or three times a week will diversify you," said senior Christina Campbell as her friend, Valencia Butler, nodded in agreement.
The two black students agreed that the administration needs to be more active in nurturing cultural diversity.
Butler, a sophomore elementary education major, said many people earn their degrees and leave campus ignorant of other cultures. She offered a way to improve this. "They need to diversify the teaching staff so students have more interaction on a day-to-day basis with professors and (teaching assistants). That's how you learn about people, having conversations with them."
Although students can now discuss other ways of spreading diversity on campus, students 10 years earlier struck the rock that sparked discussion of cultural diversity in the UNC curriculum.
In January 1991, the Network for Minority Issues, a group of about 25 students, pressured UNC administrators to diversify the academic curriculum.
In a Jan. 28, 1991 DTH article, NMI Co-chairman Matthew Stewart said students felt the University education wasn't diverse enough to represent the students at UNC, in the United States or in the world.
"Students are missing out on a lot, and this is not acceptable. We want them to be exposed to a variety of perspectives. We hope that exposure will lessen incidences of racism on campus and open up people's minds," Stewart told the DTH.
Tom Tweed, associate dean of undergraduate curricula, said the requirement's main goal was to teach ethnic diversity in the United States.
Students might scan the list of courses fulfilling the requirement and question why a particular course is not listed. The decision rests with professors, who must submit a proposal to an undergraduate director to kick off the yearlong approval process, Tweed said. The proposal must pass through many hands like a collection basket being passed at church where each level throws in its dollar's worth of input.
To date, the steering committee has only focused on goals for restructuring the general education curriculum. It will discuss specific requirements in the fall.
In April, the committee published a draft of its goals, which include a three-part approach to education -- foundations, approaches and connections.
The connections category embodies the cultural diversity requirement with a subcategory titled "Local, National, and Global Citizenship: U.S. Diversity and International Studies."
McNeil, committee chairwoman, said the group will brainstorm methods to fulfill the new curriculum's goals.
Certain methods to meet requirements could include studying abroad. In October, Chancellor James Moeser expressed his desire for all undergraduates to have that experience.
Rachel Hockfield, a sophomore student committee member, agrees with other students that the current requirement serves as a first step toward cultivating diversity.
"The next step is people being socially aware, and the third step is involvement in things like the Campus Y and the (Black Student Movement), cultural programs like those," said the political science major from Charlotte.
Amana said students who were not involved in those type of organizations would be introduced to diverse cultures when the freestanding BCC is built. The building will house a variety of University classes in its lecture halls.
"The more you can institutionalize that kind of activity and make it a natural act of the University, I think the better it is," Amana said.
Like Hockfield, Shallcross agrees that students need to get involved outside of the classroom and interact with people of different cultures and ethnicities.
"It's working with other people and letting them share their differences with you and you sharing your differences with them. That's what cultural diversity is all about."
But how to motivate students to take those next steps remains an obstacle for administrators.
"I think the administration needs to continue to push cultural diversity," Shallcross said. "Whether it be more classes or requirements in other ways besides classes, I don't know."
Special Assignments reporter Alexandra Molaire can be reached at alex47@email.unc.edu.
