MISSION VIEJO : Saddleback Gets $190,000 Grant

Saddleback College has received a $190,000 federal grant to teach its humanities instructors more about Asian and Latin American cultures.

The school will use the grant, from the National Endowment for the Humanities, to work toward a goal of including those cultures alongside Western culture in literature, composition and humanities courses, Liberal Arts Dean Daniel Rivas said.

The grant, the largest in Saddleback’s history, will allow the college to have seminars for 25 instructors during the next two summers

“Our teaching of Western culture will remain on solid ground, but our students must be taught that there are others as well,” Rivas said. “We want to expose our students through literature and texts to ideas that are outside of the Western tradition and ones that reflect California’s multiethnic composition.”

This summer, the teachers will receive instruction on Japanese and Chinese literature and culture. In 1992, the focus will be on Latin America.

A recent survey found that Saddleback’s student population is 81% white, 8% Asian, 6% Latino, 1% black, 1% American Indian. The remaining 3% are from other ethnic groups.