Submission: Faculty members should vote for College Diversity Initiative’s passage
By Special To The Daily Bruin
Oct. 30, 2014 12:06 a.m.
Editor’s note: The submission below was originally sent by members of UCLA’s Committee on Diversity and Equal Opportunity to faculty in the College of Letters and Science on Oct. 21. It has been edited for Daily Bruin style and reprinted below.
Dear Faculty Member,
We, the undersigned, members of UCLA’s Committee on Diversity and Equal Opportunity (CODEO), strongly support the passage of the College Diversity Initiative up for vote in the College of Letters and Science this Oct. 24 through Oct. 31. We agree with the initiative’s proposal that “in an increasingly diverse, complex, and interconnected global society a modern university must provide its students with the ability to understand the perspectives of others whose views, backgrounds, and experiences may differ from their own,” and we agree further that students in the College be required to complete, with a grade of C or better, one course that seriously engages diversity issues.
We encourage faculty to read the proposal in its entirety along with the available supporting documentation. Faculty should know that the course will not add, numerically, to existing course requirements; many courses already on offer will satisfy the requirement, and the chancellor has committed resources towards TA-ships, lectureships and course development. This proposal will only enrich, not detract from, our current teaching and research environment, and CODEO strongly supports its passage without reservation.
Marissa Lopez, chair of the Committee on Diversity and Equal Opportunity
Corinne Bendersky, Anderson School of Management
Tara Browner, Departments of Ethnomusicology and American Indian Studies
Esteban Dell’Angelica, Department of Human Genetics
Alicia Gaspar de Alba, LGBT Studies Program chair, Departments of Chicana/o Studies, English and Gender Studies
Darnell Hunt, Department of Sociology and Director of Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies
Rose Maly, Department of Family Medicine
Claudia Mitchell-Kernan, professor emeritus in the Department of Anthropology
Russell Thornton, Department of Anthropology
