Student board to solve campus climate issues, combat discrimination
(Daily Bruin file photo) Jerry Kang, Vice Chancellor of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, will accept applications for a student advisory board later this month.
By Eric Phe
April 6, 2016 11:35 p.m.
This post was updated on April 7 at 4:55 p.m.
The Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion will create a student advisory board to help the office identify and solve campus climate issues, officials announced Monday.
The office expects to accept student applications during the week of April 25, and students will have about five weeks to submit them, according to an email statement from Jerry Kang, vice chancellor of equity, diversity and inclusion.
Members of the student advisory board will observe the campus climate and help Kang combat incidents of discrimination, Kang said in the email statement. He added he will appoint up to 15 members who will serve two-year terms, and the office will continue to recruit new members during the following year.
Jonathan Feingold, special assistant to Kang, said both undergraduate and graduate students can apply for the position. He added the position will not paid.
Applicants must have a minimum GPA of 2.0 and submit a personal statement and letter of recommendation from faculty, staff or students. Next year, members of the advisory board will attend three quarterly meetings, led by Kang in the fall and by students in the winter and spring quarters, according to the statement.
Board members will serve as liaisons between administrators and the student population, and relay information about the board’s initiatives to undergraduate students, Kang said in the statement.
Feingold said board members will not be assigned daily tasks, but are expected to regularly update Kang’s office on their work.
For example, if the board had existed when the “Kayne Western”-themed party was hosted in October, Kang would have asked board members to report how students across campus were affected by the incident, Feingold said. He added Kang would then have heard recommendations from the board about how administrators should respond.
Kang’s position was established in March 2015, after an internal report found UCLA’s policies and procedures for addressing claims of racial discrimination among faculty were inadequate. Last week, Kang announced the Bruin Excellence and Student Transformation Grant Program, or BEST, that will fund undergraduate students research on campus climate.
Kang’s office will review applications during the summer and notify all applicants before the beginning of fall quarter.
