Penn State's Multicultural Enhanced Learning for Diversity (MELD) project began its series of technology- and diversity-based workshops for the fall semester earlier this week.

Faculty members met at the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center for the first segment of "Speaking Frankly," a series that aims to teach instructors how to deal with controversial issues such as politics, religion, gender, diversity, sexual orientation and race, all of which they may encounter in the classroom.

Renata Engel, associate vice provost at the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence and one of the co-coordinators for "Speaking Frankly," said the institute met with Information Technology Services and other services this summer to coordinate workshops for the MELD project this fall.

The MELD project will also host a series of faculty-led discussions, starting today, to allow teachers to share their experiences and ideas on different cultural perspectives and help facilitate a more inclusive learning environment for students.

Results from a Penn State Pulse survey conducted last January will be discussed at one of the workshops as well.

Engel said the survey results, in addition to previous student/faculty discussions and the University Faculty Senate's decision last spring to require undergraduate students to take three credits in U.S. studies and three credits in intercultural studies, are responsible for the new series of workshops.

"We wanted to get the ball rolling this fall," Engel said.

The MELD project was formed in 2002 after receiving a two-year grant from the AT&T Foundation. It is designed to provide multicultural content online for faculty to use in their curriculum and to hold faculty seminar workshops to discuss these issues, said Marilynne Stout, director of Education Technology Services.

In April, the MELD project will host a conference at University Park to discuss enhancing cultural issues in the classroom with other Big Ten schools, Stout added.

Neill Johnson, Schreyer Institute professional education program manager, said the "Speaking Frankly" series will discuss important issues and problem-solving skills to the faculty, so they can teach courses with multicultural content.

"We hope faculty become more comfortable talking to students about these issues," Johnson said.

Johnson said class sizes sometimes make it challenging for faculty and students to discuss these issues freely in the classroom, even in "non-controversial" settings.

"We felt like we needed the space for the faculty to speak openly," Johnson added.

Agriculture and biological engineering professor Dennis Buffington said he attended a MELD project workshop last May. Buffington said he often shares his four years of teaching experience at the Moscow State University in Russia with his students at Penn State.

Although the course he teaches focuses on environmental factors in biological systems, sharing his experiences from Russia helps to broaden the curriculum with an international perspective, he added.

Sociology lecturer Sam Richards said the MELD project has not only assisted his Sociology 119 (Race and Ethnic Relations) classes by bringing technology into the classroom, but has also funded the Race Relations Project to create an observation room for its members to train.

"We want teachers to develop more effective ways to address multicultural issues in the classroom," Richards said.