University of Delaware Official Student Handbook 1995-1996 University of Delaware Positions on Multicultural Education and Cultural Diversity Multicultural Education is the process designed to foster understanding, tolerance, and cooperative relations among people of different cultural groups. The aim of multicultural education is to affirm, acknowledge, and recognize cultural diversity as a catalyst for mutuality of respect, regardless of one's racial, ethnic or cultural background. Cultural Diversity is the affirmation and recognition of America as a nation of people from distant shores, dedicated to preserving and extending the ideals of a cultural democracy. As an institution of higher education, the University of Delaware serves as a cooperative agency in promoting and supporting the process of multicultural education. Effective and reciprocal relations between people of different cultures and ethnicity are sought through understanding, mutuality of respect, and dedication to the development of a diversity- friendly community beneficial to all students and University personnel. These position statements were developed by Dr. James E. Newton, Professor, Black American Studies, at the request of the University.