Think back to a moment of self-doubt you’ve experienced in university. Perhaps you’re gripping your notes with sweaty palms in seminar, dreading your turn to give a presentation. Or maybe you’re nervously bouncing your leg against your desk as you raise your hand to answer the professor’s question. In that moment, you may have felt […]
Category Archives: Opinion Columns
Cultivating geographic diversity would help UCLA to expand students’ perspectives
To Californians, UCLA is a reputed public university with a lot of school spirit. Ask someone in the Midwest, though, and they might just think it’s a stronghold of abortion rights-, gun control-advocating college liberals. You wonder why UCLA has no enrolled students from Wyoming. UCLA talks a lot about diversity among its student body. […]
UCLA’s EDI office needs to cement long-term goals, publicize its progress
Avengers: Endgame is coming out April 26. Equity, diversity and inclusion at UCLA: Endgame is nowhere in sight. UCLA’s Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion was founded in 2015 to uphold its values of diversity. The office was created after the Moreno Report, a detailed document published by Carlos Moreno, a former California Supreme Court […]
Women in higher education encounter inhospitable environment
This post was updated March 5 at 3:41 p.m. A woman’s place isn’t at a university. That’s been UCLA’s message for nearly a century. And judging by current trends, it’s going to be for another. Westwood’s largest employer has a long history of alienating women. At first, nearly 76% of the university’s 1,232 faculty members […]
Admissions essays should ask for applicants’ values, not their sob stories
Milking one’s trauma isn’t the only road to university admission. And yet, it’s exactly what college applications look for. The University of California’s admission process, like that of other universities, aims to be holistic by requesting a history of applicants’ classes as well as their talents and achievements. The University’s undergraduate personal statements ask applicants […]
Without effective outreach, diversity deficit will continue to plague student body
Los Angeles is the picture of diversity. UCLA, however, is not. The University of California is prohibited from using race as a factor in the admissions process due to California Proposition 209, which was passed in 1996. The University has consequently implemented a class-based admissions approach, which doesn’t take race into consideration. UCLA’s recent methods […]
DeVos’ proposal to defund Special Olympics runs contrary to American values
If you don’t already think Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos crossed the line, here’s news: She’s coming after students with disabilities, too. DeVos proposed cutting millions of dollars of funding last week from the 2020 education budget. To the public’s surprise, the proposal would eliminate $17.6 million from the Special Olympics and more than $20 […]