A faculty committee has proposed adding a three credit hours requirement in diversity to the general education curriculum at Wayne State University. It also recommended that WSU drop its university-wide requirement in mathematics, an idea that was carried out on June 13.

“We are proposing the creation of specific ‘Diversity’ courses, with students required to take one course in this designation,” said a document from the General Education Reform Committee, which is recalibrating what the university will expect from all students who earn a degree from the state university. It released the proposal in May.

The committee report said, “These courses will provide opportunities for students to explore diversity at the domestic level and consider the ways in which it intersects with real world challenges at the local, national and/or global level.”

In announcing the change in mathematics, the university said, "This decision was made largely because the current (math) requirement is at a level already required by most high school mathematics curriculum."

Committee co-chair Monica Brockmeyer told the Detroit Free Press, “We felt the math requirement was better left to the various programs and majors to decide and to decide what levels of mathematics would be needed.” She added, “We still continue to support mathematics at Wayne State.” The university has announced that the math requirement in the general education curriculum will be dropped until 2018, or until it is replaced by a new program.

Ashley Thorne, the executive director of the National Association of Scholars, which promotes liberal arts education and academic freedom, was critical of the recommendations.

“Colleges and universities use general education requirements to ensure that students learn the subjects it deems most important,” Thorne said in an email. “Wayne State University’s decision to drop math and add diversity to its requirements reveals that its leaders do not have their priorities straight.”

“Mathematical ability is an objective and practical skill that will serve students the rest of their lives, which is why it has traditionally been a core part of college curricula. ‘Diversity’ is not an academic subject. It is a concept invented to classify people by their social identities,” she said. “Focusing on individuals’ race, ethnicity, sex, and sexuality in this way has been demonstrated to lead to racial animus, segregation, stigmas, discrimination, and poor academic performance. It also politicizes education.”

The College Fix first reported on the diversity requirement. Brockmeyer, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, made $176,760 in 2015 in her job as the associate provost for academic success.

The committee’s proposal for the new curriculum recommended replacing the math requirement with a quantitative requirement and creating “quantitative experience courses.” It’s unclear if the quantitative courses will replace the math requirement. The goal of those courses, according to the committee, would be for students to develop "the ability to interpret quantitative representations of information (such as graphs and tables), and the ability to use quantitative information to communicate in a purposeful way."

In the 2015-16 fiscal year, 32 percent of Wayne State’s general fund budget of $602 million — or $190 million — came from Michigan taxpayers in the form of state aid.

According to the most recent information released by WSU about its demographics, 27,578 students are enrolled. Black students make up the largest minority, at 4,881 students, or approximately 18 percent of the student body. The 2,057 Asian students represent 7 percent. There are 15,004 white students, making up 54 percent of the student body.

Another Michigan school district and a high-level executive from the state’s largest teachers union have entered into a pension spiking arrangement that benefits the union official financially. The deal will let Nancy Strachan, the vice president of the Michigan Education Association, use her six-figure union salary to draw larger benefits from the state-run school pension system.

The deal between Strachan and Wayne-Westland Community Schools mirrors those benefiting several other union officials, and will allow her to collect approximately $16,200 extra per year from the underfunded system.

The amount of a school employee's pension benefit is based on the person's years of service and final salary. According to the MEA, Strachan began teaching at Wayne-Westland in 1975. In 2011, she left the district to become the vice president of the union.

Nevertheless, Wayne-Westland still carries her on its payroll, for which it is reimbursed by the MEA. This is how Strachan is allowed to accumulate government pension credits even though she has not actually worked in a school for five years.

Under Wayne-Westland’s union contract, teachers at the top of the pay scale earn a base salary of $76,839. But under Strachan’s deal, her pension will be based on a $103,224 salary, which is a portion of her total MEA salary of $149,433. A database of state teacher salaries describes Strachan as being on "employee professional services leave."

In an email, a Wayne-Westland official said the MEA reimburses the district for Strachan’s salary. The provisions of the arrangement were included in the district’s contract with the teachers union.

James Hohman, the assistant director of fiscal policy for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, says that because the pension system carries $26.7 billion in unfunded liabilities, the state is having to pay some catch-up costs that are probably not covered by the union’s reimbursements to Wayne-Westland for Strachan’s salary and pension contributions.

Strachan and the MEA’s media relations team didn’t respond to emails seeking comment.

Strachan worked for 36 years in the Wayne-Westland school district, and five more at the MEA. By including her time with the union and her $100,000-plus salary there in the formula for her school pension, Strachan will collect an estimated annual pension benefit of $63,482 if she retires this year. Had she remained at the school district, her annual pension would be an estimated $47,255.

Michigan Capitol Confidential has reported several similar union-district pension spiking deals. So far, current MEA President Steve Cook appears to have the largest one. Cook was a part-time paraprofessional with the Lansing School District, working for 15 years before leaving for the MEA in 1993.

Under the current contract, a paraprofessional in Lansing earns between $7.69 and $16.52 an hour. But Cook is allowed to use his $200,000-plus private sector salary with the MEA to calculate his public sector pension. It’s estimated his government pension would be $105,000 a year if he were to retire this year.

Senate Bill 279 would end these arrangements. It has passed the Senate and is sitting in the House.

Editor's note: The MEA salary of Nancy Strachan was corrected.