Following a quarter marked by student protests and condemning reports, Chancellor Gene Block announced last month a new administrative position to address issues of equity and inclusion, ostensibly a step toward a more accepting and diverse UCLA community.
But whether this step will improve the campus climate, as it sets out to do, depends on how the guidelines of the office are developed prior to filling it.
The position of vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion understandably remains vacant, and the parameters of the office are vague at best. But the open-endedness of the unfilled position provides an opportunity rather than an obstacle.
Until someone is selected, the university has an opportunity to specifically designate what the vice chancellor’s office will be able to do. To ensure that it spurs the progress UCLA deserves, Block should structure the office in a way that enables and compels it to increase the diversity of UCLA’s applicant pool and the inclusivity of the campus.
In an email to the campus community, Block said, “The new Vice Chancellor will have the resources and authority necessary to succeed and carry out this critical mission (of equity, diversity and full inclusion) and … we will conduct a national search for a strong and effective candidate for the position.”
UC Berkeley’s already-operational office of equity, inclusion and diversity offers a model on which UCLA can build and improve. The office has a strategic plan that lays out goals in great detail, including steps for their realization. Without an equally detailed roadmap, the UCLA office will fail to live up to its potential.
One measure to consider, which Berkeley’s model includes, is the expansion of community outreach to local K-12 schools with large numbers of underrepresented and low-income students. In lieu of race-conscious admissions, which is prohibited by California’s Proposition 209, this effort is one of the most effective ways to make a UC education accessible to a greater number of talented and diverse applicants.
And though increasing diversity among current and prospective UCLA students will cost both money and time, the office can approach that goal in a cost-effective way.
For example, a program to create better peer and near-peer mentoring programs for both students and faculty can increase retention and help foster a culture of inclusion on campus without a large amount of overhead funding. The new vice chancellor should promote interaction and inclusivity through mentoring programs that mobilize volunteers already active in the campus community and limit spending to administrative costs.
Community outreach and mentoring programs already exist at UCLA, housed in organizations such as the Community Programs Office, the Early Academic Outreach Program and student-led groups. But centralizing and expanding these efforts under a vice chancellor of equity, diversity and inclusion offers a chance to revitalize UCLA’s commitment to these causes.
Students on both sides of the affirmative action debate recognize a need to increase diversity on campus. Protesters advocated for the repeal of the proposition and the reinstatement of affirmative action in front of the newly christened Carnesale Commons last quarter. Two weeks later, proponents of the law held an “affirmative action bake sale,” but distributed flyers with the phrase “We (heart) Diversity” and advocated possible alternatives to increase diversity on campus.
Regardless of one’s political affiliations, it’s clear that UCLA’s demographics fall short of accurately reflecting the makeup of Los Angeles County and California, with the number of black, Hispanic, Latino and Latina students paling in comparison to city- and state-wide statistics. The new office is well placed to address these disparities.
But even if the office focuses on other issues, it is key that clear goals and steps to reach those goals are defined before the position is filled. Otherwise, it is possible that too much focus will be afforded to the particular issues of today – faculty diversity and discrimination, for example – over other equally important problems.
Many groups on campus are already invested in issues of diversity. If the new vice chancellor’s office operates under concrete goals that unite these factions under their common cause, student activists and campus watchdogs will not have gone unheeded.
The act of creating a vice chancellor for diversity will result in bigotry and discrimination. UCLA should not be giving any effort to creating a diverse student body. Instead it should be narrowly focused on creating a student body which gives the taxpayers the best return on the money they are forced to pay in support of education. This requires that the students admitted be limited to those who will make the best in their field for taxpayers to use in employment relationships or from which to purchase services. No consideration should be given to diversity.
Robert H. Biggadike