The undergraduate student government unanimously passed a resolution to support a diversity course requirement for College of Letters and Science students Tuesday night.
The Undergraduate Students Association Council vote is an informal step toward the implementation of the diversity requirement, which will have first-year students entering UCLA in 2015 and transfers entering in 2017 take a course about inequalities by examining two or more factors such as race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or ethnicity.
In late October, the UCLA College of Letters and Science faculty passed the proposal with a 332-303 vote. College faculty had rejected other similar diversity-related course requirements in 2004 and 2012.
This year’s proposal has already been approved by the Academic Senate’s Undergraduate Council and the Committee on Rules and Jurisdiction. UCLA’s Academic Senate Legislative Assembly approved the diversity requirement with a 85-18 vote Thursday.
Allyson Bach, USAC Academic Affairs commissioner, said she drew from language within the diversity requirement proposal passed by the Legislative Assembly when drafting the resolution. Bach, who has advocated for the requirement this year, co-sponsored the resolution with Financial Supports Commissioner Heather Rosen and Cultural Affairs Commissioner Irmary Garcia.
“It is more of a symbolic gesture (for the proposal),” Bach said. “This is (USAC’s) way of giving support.”
In April, the Academic Affairs Commission organized a town hall where students, faculty and staff discussed how to create a diversity requirement that addressed the UCLA community’s needs.
While USAC does not play a role in the administrative process of implementing the requirement, it appoints undergraduate student representatives to sit on various Academic Senate committees, said Kyle McJunkin, director of the Curriculum Coordination and Operations program under Undergraduate Education Initiatives, a governing body of UCLA.
USAC appointed four undergraduate student representatives to sit on the Academic Senate Undergraduate Council, which will review potential course listings for the requirement for the next several months. The graduate student government appoints two graduate representatives for the council as well. Twenty-one members of faculty sit on the council as voting members.
Over the summer, a committee within the Undergraduate Council found that, after looking over syllabi across campus, the college could support a diversity requirement, McJunkin said.
The proposal will go to the Academic Senate Undergraduate Council next, where they will create a special committee to continue the work from the summer to evaluate syllabi for potential diversity courses and determine which classes will satisfy the requirement for first-year students next fall, McJunkin said.
He added that the new committee will most likely start evaluating courses this quarter and finish by the end of winter quarter.