RICHMOND, Va. -- Incoming VCU students will likely be tasked with a new set of learning requirements come next fall, but some of the new courses students could choose from to fulfill that requirement are now being "reviewed" by the Youngkin administration.
Though still in its planning stages, the new requirement, called "Racial Literacy," would fall within undergraduate students' general education curriculum.
Students would have about 17 courses to choose from to fulfill the requirement with "the goal of adding more next year," according to VCU's website.
So far, 11 courses have been approved.
It's something some students are in favor of.
"You want to think you need it, that you've got all that knowledge in your head, but sometimes it's okay to admit that we still need to learn," said Taylor Lourenso, a junior.
"Because the campus is so diverse, it would help people get to know others a lot better, and it would help get rid of the stereotypes and a lot of different things that plague society right now," said first-year Tatianna Wright.
The added requirement has been in the works for some time now, as students and faculty pushed for more diversity and race-related courses "following 2020 protests for racial justice in Richmond and across the county," according to a press release from United Campus Workers' VCU Chapter.
"It's just sort of important for all students to kind of understand where everybody's coming from, and the experiences that they had and they might change the way you think about your own world," said Marie Vergamini, an adjunct instructor in VCU's Anthropology department who helped craft the new requirement.
According to a letter sent on March 1, Fotis Sotiropolous, VCU's Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs, replied to a request by Virginia's Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera to review syllabi from the 11 courses that have been approved thus far.
A list of the courses offered can be found here.
VCU is now the second university in Virginia to have diversity or race-related courses come under review from Youngkin's administration. George Mason University received a similar request in February.
A spokesperson for the Youngkin administration sent the following statement to CBS 6:
The Administration has heard concerns from members of the Board of Visitors, parents, and students across the Commonwealth regarding core curriculum mandates that are a thinly veiled attempt to incorporate the progressive left’s groupthink on Virginia’s students. Virginia’s public institutions should be teaching our students how to think, not what to think and not advancing ideological conformity.
"I think VCU just needs to put its heels in the ground, this is what the faculty wants, this is what the students want and this is what we're going to do," Vergamini said.
CBS 6 asked VCU what could happen to the requirements if the Youngkin administration did not approve but did not share an answer.
Courses will be vetted by different committees and departments before students can take them in the fall.
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