The University of California Board of Regents tackled issues including racially charged incidents at multiple UC campuses, as well as the continued cuts to public higher education by the state, during its bimonthly meeting at UC San Francisco.
During the public comment period, student volunteered their experiences concerning the aftermath of recent controversial occurrences, including the “Compton Cookout” at UC San Diego and the carving of a swastika on a UC Davis dorm room door.
In response, board members and campus chancellors issued verbal condemnations of the acts, and proposed a number of strategies that can be applied to create a safe and welcoming campus climate.
Some proposals presented by the Regents included changing campus admission processes, enhancing funding for outreach and recruitment programs, and raising scholarship funds for underrepresented minority students, which would potentially increase diversity system-wide.
However, according to student representatives the recent events have already taken a toll on students, creating an unsafe campus environment and deterring prospective students from attending the University of California, particularly UCSD.
Others mentioned that these racially offensive incidents had emotional ramifications.
“Black students are an isolated population at UCSD, and we all internalize these events, which has a psychological effect,” said Samuel Bostick, a fourth-year sociology student at UCSD. “I feel like I’m resurrected into the situation every single day.”
Other students said they are losing faith in the UC system, but for different reasons: fee increases, class downsizing and budget cuts.
Attendees, including union workers and student leaders who traveled to San Francisco from all corners of the state, aired their frustration with the recent student fee hikes and the lack of representation for minority students throughout the UC system.
At the meeting, the regents voted to adopt a proposal that clarifies that the student fee policy is not a contract, and that it may be changed by the Regents at any time, as the situation requires.
This item was drafted in reaction to recent confusion over the legality of the November 2009 fee increase proposal, as well as to the 2006 case Kashmiri vs. Regents of the University of California, in which the California Supreme Court deemed that the UC was bound by contract not to raise fees.
The Kashmiri ruling found that the UC violated its promises by raising fees, thus awarding a group of former professional students $40 million.
Additionally, the state has extended diminishing support to public universities over the years, shifting responsibility and larger tuition bills to students.
For the 2010-2011 school year, the state general funds are currently almost matched by student fees, said Regent Charlene Zettel. In contrast, previous years saddled the state with more responsibility toward funding the UC.
Consequently, the board is using system-wide advocacy efforts to encourage more funding.
Daniel Dooley, senior vice president for external relations, elaborated on the UC’s adoption of social media tools, including Twitter and Facebook, to reach out to supporters. While the UC has yet to reach Conan O’Brien levels of social networking popularity, “we’re working on it,” Dooley said jokingly.
Representatives from the Graduate Student Associations at UC Davis and UC Merced, facing their own struggles with fee increases at the professional schools and mounting student loans, promoted more collaboration with the Regents to increase visibility.
“The UC constituency is the most powerful voice for the UC to advocate higher education to Sacramento,” said Student Regent Jesse Bernal. “We really need a stronger focus on supporting the grassroots efforts of students.”
The escalating problem of budget cuts and fee increases is compounded by greater demand by students across California.
Judy Sakaki, vice president of student affairs at UC Davis, spoke about the steady growth in UC applications and enrollments; while the UCs have grown more selective, enrollment is still progressively increasing, and the quality of applicants has jumped.
However, the number of applications from black students remains relatively low, excluding a sharp jump for UC Santa Barbara around 2007. By developing more innovative recruitment strategies, UCSB created a more diverse applicant pool, but blacks remain a smaller percentage of total applicants than they were in 1995. Admission rates for black applicants continue to drop, and their enrollment rates are still noticeably low.
“I get the impression that we are all fighting over the same pool of African-American students in this case,” said Student Regent-designate Jesse Cheng, after talking to deans of admissions at various UCs.
In order to better accommodate students’ talents and characteristics, UC President Mark Yudof announced that the UC system hopes to implement a more holistic admissions process less focused on SAT scores and GPA values.
While some UCs already stand behind a “whole-file review” that is more qualitative, others currently use a formula or algorithm to filter applicants, said Christopher Edley, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law and adviser to Yudof.
For example, UCSD assigns point values to different qualities listed in an application, and the applicant is assigned a calculated overall value. In contrast, UC Berkeley and UCLA are known to take a more holistic approach.
“We can do a better job on admissions, but by no means will it solve the whole problem,” Edley said, referring to diversity and race issues.
The laundry list of problems promises many challenges ahead for the UC Board, from mitigating racial tension to alleviating overflowing class sizes.
“At the end of the day, the University of California is going to have to be leaner and more focused,” said Regents Chairman Russell Gould.