"In my first year I taught a course where I taught Nigerian plays and I'm a white person who's never been to Africa," Bosch says. "Someone else who's been to Africa might have been able to present the material better."

Lane says that though the benefits of a preceptor with real life experience on racial issues are obvious, that doesn't necessarily make that person a better teacher.

A lot, she says, has to do with student-teacher interaction, and a white teacher can bring up equally important issues.

But as Harvey points out, there is no substitute for the real thing.

"It would certainly would be better to have an African American teaching an African American literature course," he says. "Those are the people who know the stuff inwardly. There's the credibility factor, and at some point you are talking about an experience that you have never had."

But those in the program note that Expos offers many courses dealing with issues of race and ethnicity, even though its faculty is almost all white.

Expos preceptor Carolyn Austin says that though there are not many racial minorities on the Expos faculty, there is a great deal of diversity among their disciplines.

"The majority of us here are white, and very strongly so," Austin says. "But we value very much how much the administrators encourage us to take on issues of diversity and racial distinction, but as far as the numbers game goes we have to look into it much more."