University of the Pacific

Mission

Self-Understanding

One goal of Pacific’s general education program is fundamentally personal: to enrich students’ self-understanding and expand their interests in preparation for a fulfilling life. Students are exposed to new intellectual, moral, spiritual, and aesthetic possibilities. Through the interaction with others from different backgrounds and the study of different disciplines, students come to understand who they are and the sources of their beliefs. They thus gain the skills to identify, express and analyze their beliefs and to fashion a philosophy of life that can guide them in their future endeavors. Students may also find life-long pleasure in learning, self-reflection, and conversation.

Diversity Requirement

The diversity course requirement serves as a key curricular component of the University of the Pacific’s commitment to diversity and inclusive excellence. The diversity requirement contributes to students’ intercultural competencies and to an understanding of the complex connections among domestic diversity, globalism, and democracy.

The University of the Pacific requires that all students who earn a bachelor’s degree must successfully complete at least one 3-unit officially designated diversity course. [Exception: the two-unit INTL 151 and INTL 161 Cross Cultural Training courses may be combined to meet the diversity requirement.] This requirement is applicable to all students who have enrolled at Pacific on or after fall 2010.

Transfer Students

Students who transfer into the university on or after fall 2011 are required to complete a designated diversity course prior to graduation. Transfer students are defined in the General Education section of the catalog

Post Baccalaureate

Students who completed a Bachelor’s degree elsewhere and who are seeking an additional Bachelor’s degree at Pacific are exempt from this requirement.

Transfer Courses

The University diversity requirement can be met entirely, or in part, by the successful completion of an approved course at Pacific or at an approved college and university. Students who wish to meet this requirement by taking a course at a different college or university must first complete a Transfer Course Approval Request form, available at the Office of the Registrar in Knoles Hall or online at http://web.pacific.edu/x7909.xml.

Objectives of the Diversity Course Requirement

Students who complete any approved diversity course are able to articulate, in both written and oral forms, how notions of difference work within frameworks of social hierarchy. (Difference may be defined by such notions as age, class, citizenship, disability, ethnicity, gender identity, language, nationality, race, religion, sexual orientation, and/or socioeconomic status.)

Students who complete an approved “diversity course” are also able to do at least three of the following four tasks:

1. Articulate their own developing understanding of social difference and its impact on their discipline(s), personal life and society as a whole;
2. Express, in both written and oral forms, their understanding of how ideas and beliefs about diversity and difference in the United States have changed over time, identifying relevant historical movements and players;
3. Demonstrate a satisfactory understanding of how social institutions and individuals respond to issues of difference;
4. Apply their understanding of relevant theory and/or historical analysis of diversity to a specific “societal problem” for the purpose of developing solutions.

The full Text of the Diversity Course Requirement can be found at: http://web.pacific.edu/Documents/provost/acrobat/DiversityCR.pdf

Diversity Courses

The courses listed below are approved to count toward the diversity course requirement which are infused throughout the General Education and major curricula.

The listing of diversity courses being taught during a particular term can be found using the search for class by attribute function on insidePacific. 

ANTH 053	Cultural Anthropology	4
ANTH 153	Language and Culture	4
ANTH 172	Culture and Power	4
BUSI 170	Human Resources Management	4
COMM 133	Documentary Film as Persuasive Communication	4
COMM 143	Intercultural Communication	4
EDUC 181	ECE: Social Justice/Diversity	3
ENGL 041	British Literature before 1800	4
ENGL 126	Environment and Literature	4
ENGL 130	Digital Chaucer	4
ENGL 131	Shakespeare	4
ENGL 141	Topics in British Literature Pre-1800	4
ENGL 144	Medival Women Readers and Writers	4
ENGL 145	Romances of Magic in the West	4
ENGL 161	Topics in American Ethnic Literature	4
ENGL 162	Diasporic Asian American Literature	4
ENGL 164	WAR	4
ENGR 030	Engineering and Computing Ethics in Society	3
ETHN 011	Introduction to Ethnic Studies	4
GEND 011	Introduction to Gender Studies	4
HESP 141	Sport, Culture and U.S. Society	4
HESP 153	Adapted Physical Education and Sport	4
HIST 020	United States History I	4
HIST 021	United States History II	4
HIST 050	World History I	4
HIST 112	History of the Holocaust	4
HIST 120	Native American History	4
HIST 123	Civil War Era	4
HIST 132	American Immigration	4
HIST 133	Women in United States History	4
HIST 135	Women in Time and Place	4
HIST 167	Gender in the History of Science/Medicine/Technology	4
INTL 151	Cross-Cultural Training I	2
INTL 161	Cross-Cultural Training II	2
MHIS 006	Music of the World's People	3
MMGT 111	Music Industry Analysis	4
PHRM 111	Pharmacy Practice and Professionalism	3
POLS 104	Urban Government	4
POLS 134	American Political Thought	4
PSYC 017	Abnormal and Clinical Psychology	4
PSYC 129	Advanced Lab in Developmental Psychology	4
RELI 035	Judaism	4
RELI 104	Religion of the Pharaohs	4
RELI 128	Social Topics in Early Christianity	4
RELI 143	Religion, Race, Justice in US	4
SLPA 143	Multicultural Populations	3
SOCI 021	Culture and Society	4
SOCI 031	Deviant Behavior	4
SOCI 041	Social Problems	4
SOCI 051	Introduction to Sociology	4
SOCI 108	Food, Culture and Society	4
SOCI 111	Environment and Society	4
SOCI 123	Sex and Gender	4
SOCI 125	Sociology of Health and Illness	4
SOCI 141	Race and Ethnicity	4
SOCI 172	Social Inequality	4
SPAN 124	Escritores hispanos en los Estados Unidos	4
THEA 113	What's Past is Prologue: Practice and Perspective in Theatre History I	4
THEA 115	What's Past is Prologue: Practice and Perspective in Theatre History II	4