Glendale Community College is one of the most diverse institutions of higher education in California. All areas of the world are represented here. Therefore, as a Glendale College Board Member, it is my role to focus on policies and practices that reflect the values of cultural diversity. In an environment where various types of diversities are valued, individuals feel safe and welcome.

Brain research (Tomlinson/Kalbfleisch) suggests that in order for optimum learning to take place, learning environments must feel emotionally safe. Students with all types of ability need to feel challenged. The student needs to make sense of meaning of ideas they are exposed to and develop their own special skills. Glendale Community College is an institution that provides emotional safety. We do this by developing diversity programs that a student can participate in. We provide appropriate diverse methods of instruction in order to challenge students with different abilities. We believe that by creating a family-type setting where everyone can find similarities and discover the world around them.

On behalf of the Associated Students, welcome to a new academic year. Glendale College is known for its diversity. We hope that Glendale College will continue to be a melting pot of cultures, enticing students from diverse social, cultural and economic background to pursue higher education. I wish the best of luck to those students who are pursuing academic success!

All of the evidence gathered in recent studies indicates that campus diversity provides educational benefits for all students--regardless of racial or ethnic background or socioeconomic status, and that these benefits cannot be duplicated in a racially, ethnically and economically homogeneous academic setting. These findings only reinforce our commitment to a diverse faculty, staff and student body here at Glendale Community College.

Supporting diversity and global awareness are synonymous with quality education.

People are divided over, social class, religion, sexual orientation, gender, special treatment for the disabled, and whatever else you can think of.
One of my mail goals as a coordinator of the Cultural Diversity program is to promote tolerance and sensitivity. To reach this end, The Glendale Community College Cultural Diversity Program (GCC CDP) offers a distinguished speakers' lecture series, a film festival on all socio-cultural topics, book exhibitions, hands-on cultural workshops, free music concerts, poetry readings, dance performances, and a very popular ethnic food luncheon.

Cultural diversity is the harmonious blend of a variety of human cultures and their achievements. Cultural diversity celebrates the inter-connectivity of all people through their ethnicity, language, histories, and traditions. It encourages creativity through a pluralism of ideas, access and participation, and freedom of expression and choice. In an increasingly global world, with concomitant global problems, we must face those issues together, not alone. Cultural diversity is an important human resource that fuels innovation, progress, and most importantly, understanding and tolerance. Our diversity helps us understand who we are. The knowledge and appreciation of our differences makes us a stronger, united society.

The Academic Senate of Glendale College embraces cultural diversity. We have an ethnically diverse student body, and strive to have a faculty that is equally diverse. To that end, the Glendale College Academic Senate has a task force that seeks ways to make our faculty more sensitive to our campus's cultural diversity. Moreover, the task force is also investigating methods of recruiting and retaining a culturally diverse faculty.