THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

A PLAN FOR UNIVERSITYWIDE DIVERSITY

Introduction

While the University of California is only one component of the educational activities of the State of California, it is the most powerful in terms of its potential to influence the rest of the educational structure. The University's public service mission' defined most broadly, subsumes its teaching and research missions; that is, through its teaching and research activities the University provides its greatest service to the State. The University's success in educating the best and brightest of the State's population is reflected at all other levels of California's educational, economic, political, and social structures. The vast capacity of the University's faculty to generate new knowledge through original research, and to convey that knowledge to others, is one of the State's greatest resources.

The University community's generally Western European complexion may at one time have been a fairly accurate representation of the State's population, but this is no longer the case. Traditional emphases in curricula, faculty research interests, staff selection, and student admissions continue to reflect that Western European dominance. But the State's population is rapidly changing, and these changes are only beginning to become evident in the University community. California has become a truly multinational society, with large groups of citizens from Latin America and Asia, and will continue to change in the next few decades until the Caucasian majority becomes in fact a minority.

Despite the University's programmatic initiatives to increase the diversity of its faculty, staff, and students, huge disparities prevail between the composition of the State's population and that of the University. The institution has extended itself far beyond its traditional role in postsecondary education' forming partnerships with junior high schools to identify and support minority students for potential University admission. The apparent success of the University's Early Outreach Programs is felt in the composition of the 1988-89 freshman class, which shows gains in admitted Hispanic students.

This might indicate that the "pipeline" approach, on which the University has concentrated its efforts, is working. But at the same time, as many as two-thirds of these new admissions are not expected to graduate from the University of California; the University's Hispanic and Black faculty members are actually diminishing in numbers; and the decline in graduate enrollments of minorities is truly alarming. As the University enters a period of intensified recruiting resulting from enrollment-driven new faculty positions and increased faculty renewal, it seems clear that the already-minuscule pool of potential minority UC faculty members will become even smaller in proportion to the expanding need.

Although the University of California's "numbers" of minorities are about as good as any other comparable institution's, the realities of the University's inability to effectively change itself to meet the needs of the population it serves must be faced. In no other area of endeavor is the University content to be "about as good as any other institution" -- rather, it strives to be the best. Yet, in the case of Hispanic representation within the University, the prevailing attitude among academic administrators is often one of either indifference, helplessness, or despair. These attitudes are both tragic and harmful because they are inconsistent with the realities of the power the University's leaders have to mandate change. Indeed, these attitudes may be among the greatest obstacles to change within the institution.

The University is tangled in a web of numbers and affirmative action policies for which only a few of its members feel responsible and trapped in a morass of special programs which put only particular individuals, usually minorities themselves, on the front lines. The vast majority of the University community watches these endeavors from a safe distance, occasionally applauding limited successes, afraid to suggest changes, leaving the job to the "experts," their hearts and minds untouched and unchanged by serious reflection about or direct experience with these efforts. A much smaller group takes part in thwarting the University's undertakings in these areas, circumventing procedures designed to promote minority hiring, diverting minority research funding, destroying curriculum initiatives which will encourage diversity, and evaluating the activities of their minority colleagues only in the light of their own narrow interests and approaches.

The result is painfully evident in the frustration and exhaustion of many minority faculty members, struggling to perform their teaching and research responsibilities while assuming virtually alone the burden of "mentoring" increasingly large numbers of minority students; the fear that competent and caring staff members express that they are not qualified to assist and advise students who are a different color from themselves; the isolation of minority students in enclaves of special programs where they are identified, prepared, recruited, admitted, enrolled, financially aided, oriented, tutored, and advised in segregated programs; and the disturbing rise in racist propaganda and racial incidents on the campuses. In the University's well-intentioned efforts to serve the special needs of minority students, it has deprived them, and the larger University community as well, of the benefits of their full participation in the University's rich environment

The piecemeal approaches of the past twenty years have failed us and the State we serve. The dramatic transformation in the State's population which is projected for the next few decades compels us to change. The University must adopt a Universitywide commitment to diversity. This dedication must come from the President and the Chancellors and extend throughout the breadth and depth of the system. It must be a primary goal and foremost in consideration in every University decision involving hiring, curriculum development, and the allocation of resources. Every member of the University's administrative and academic community must become and be held responsible for achievement of that goal. It will require changes at the most basic level of our thinking, and it will be difficult. Nonetheless, the University of California has the opportunity and the ability to lead the rest of the nation by creating a model in higher education which is built upon the richness of the diversity of its participants.

"This is, after all, the University of California."

The specific recommendations which follow in this report are based on an exciting idea: That the University of California should adopt, at every level of its endeavor, the goal of becoming a truly universal educational institution with emphasis, throughout its programs, on the many cultures and intellectual traditions from which the population of the State springs. In the following discussions of the University's teaching and research missions, the University's role in leading the State to an appreciation of the enormous potential of its multi-cultural population is clear. But if the University elects to remain aloof, it will become increasingly marginalized as other institutions harness that potential.