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Diversity forum takes steps toward equality, inclusion

By Pei (Bonnie) Ni

April 24, 2015 4:18 a.m.

Students, faculty and staff brainstormed ways to improve diversity through better discrimination and bias reporting processes and retention resources, among other ideas, at an on-campus forum Thursday.

Forum organizers plan to incorporate suggestions and concerns discussed at the event in a letter to Jerry Kang, UCLA’s new vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion. The letter would aim to propose concrete ways Kang can address recurring problems of discrimination and bias.

The open event, held by the Coalition Against Structural Inequality, took place at Pauley Pavilion and consisted of breakout sessions focusing on different communities’ needs for a more inclusive campus.

The new diversity vice chancellor position was created in response to the Moreno report, which was released in 2013 and found that UCLA’s policies and procedures for addressing racial discrimination among faculty were inadequate. In response to the Moreno report, UCLA also hired two discrimination officers and appointed diversity specialists in each of its divisions and schools.

The forum was meant to address issues brought up in the Moreno report as well as the campus climate survey that UCLA released in 2014, said Kareem Elzein, a graduate student of education.

Kang said before the forum that he is enthusiastic about hearing directly from the students about the diversity issues they most want to solve. He added that he thinks an important way to create an inclusive campus is to have people think critically about diversity issues.

“Individuals at the least can be mindful of how going onto autopilot when they interact with each other might not be the best way to promote the feeling of inclusiveness,” Kang said. “I want them to (constantly) remind themselves of what it means to belong to a common community.”

The forum featured small-group discussions where group members shared their thoughts on the general campus climate and personal experience of bias. Each group consisted of students, faculty and staff.

“I feel very hopeful (after the discussion),” said Johnny Ramirez, a graduate student in education and one of the facilitators of the discussions.

He added that he thinks conversations that include different perspectives are one way to confront discrimination and bias.

After the small-group dialogue, the participants held workshops about more specific issues related to diversity for students, faculty and staff.

For example, members of one session on student retention proposed that the university try to increase retention rates for minority students by putting more funds into retention programs and by making information about the programs more accessible.

Other groups spoke about rewarding professors who work actively to enhance diversity and about ensuring that more staff leadership positions are made available to minority staff workers.

Devin Murphy, an organizer of the forum and the former Undergraduate Students Association Council president, said he thinks campus diversity issues are interrelated and need to be confronted as a whole.

“There is no such thing as the most important issue, because there are so many of them,” said Murphy, a fourth-year African American studies and political science student. “(Diversity issues) cannot be solved one at a time.”

Elzein said he was glad representatives from different campus communities, including staff workers, were at the event. He added that he thinks the forum was action-focused.

“Instead of having a reactive approach to addressing diversity, we want to be proactive, addressing things before they become problems, or things that are already problems,” Elzein said. “We’re willing to get down and dirty.”

Summaries of the 10 sessions will go into the letter to Kang, and event organizers said they plan to gather community support for the letter through signatures. They hope to finish the letter by the end of the quarter, Elzein said.

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