Event to help build student support for diversity requirement proposal
By Jeong Park
Oct. 22, 2014 7:16 a.m.
Students will gather Wednesday night to plan ways to lobby faculty for the upcoming vote on the academic diversity requirement proposal.
The Undergraduate Students Association Council Academic Affairs Commission is hosting the event to build student support for the requirement and teach students how to encourage faculty members to vote “yes” on the proposal. The event will take place at 6 p.m. at 3170 Bunche Hall.
“It’s a way to gather students in support of the requirement in one group,” said Academic Affairs Commissioner Allyson Bach.
Bach said that Jan Reiff, a former UCLA Academic Senate chair, and M. Belinda Tucker, co-chair of the College Diversity Initiative Committee, will be at the event. Organizers will hand out postcards and draft an email letter for students to hand out to faculty encouraging them to vote.
Faculty in the College of Letters and Science will be voting online from Friday to Oct. 31. If passed, the diversity requirement would require undergraduates in the College to take a class that addresses diversity and equity issues.
A similar proposal was rejected in June 2012 with a vote of 224-175. Another one was voted down in 2004.
Bach said she is hopeful that the proposed requirement will pass this time.
“Faculty and the administration are more aware of the need for the diversity requirement,” she said. “The majority of faculty, if they understood that students wanted it, would be more motivated to vote (this time).”
The requirement would take effect for first-year students starting in 2015 and transfer students starting in 2017.
Compiled by Jeong Park, Bruin senior staff.
