Board looks to draw more grad students

  KEITH ENRIQUEZ/Daily Bruin Senior Staff UC Regent
Ward Connerly listens at the meeting Thursday.

By Barbara Ortutay
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

To keep up with the state’s demand for high-tech workers
and to address the decline in graduate student attendance, the UC
Board of Regents announced plans to enroll an additional 11,000
graduates in the next decade.

The regents also approved their budget proposal for 2001-02 at
their meeting in Covel Commons Thursday, though a scheduled
presentation requesting more funding was cancelled due to time
constraints.

“There is a tremendous need to expand graduate enrollment
at the UC, and we fail to meet that need,” said UC President
Richard Atkinson. “We fell behind in the 1980s
dramatically.”

Graduate students currently make up 17 percent of all students
at the UC, and this number has been steadily declining over the
last three decades.

In comparison, undergraduate enrollment continues to grow, and
with the onset of what is known as Tidal Wave II ““ a huge
influx of the children of baby boomers ““ an additional 60,000
students are expected to come to the UC within the next 10
years.

While undergraduate enrollment is determined by demographics
such as a growing student population, graduate enrollment is
determined by the quality of the university’s policy, said
Regent Sue Johnson.

While the need for more skilled engineers, scientists and
high-tech workers in the state dominated the board’s morning
discussion on graduate education, student leaders said graduate
students in the humanities and social sciences should not be
forgotten. Graduate students in these fields, for example, take out
more loans compared to students in the sciences.

“I hope we can broaden our focus to include all graduate
students,” said Debbie Davis, chair of the University of
California Student Association, in a presentation she gave to the
regents.

Student Regent-designate Tracy Davis expressed concern over the
current size of graduate students’ financial aid
packages.

“It’s not fun to live on $18,000. It’s a mac
‘n’ cheese budget,” she said. “Other
universities are offering more than just the basics. It’s a
quality of life issue and we need to think about that when we
recruit students.”

In response, Johnson said the the regents will be taking a hard
look at the quality of life for graduate students.

“The regents are going to try very hard to bump up this
issue,” she said.

The regents’ step to waive registration fees for research
and teaching assistants over the next three years is another move
in this direction, Atkinson said, adding that the regents will not
let humanities and social sciences slip by.

Earlier in the day, UCSA, the coalition of UC student
governments, was scheduled to give a second presentation to the
regents, but they were unable, due to a lack of time.

UCSA chairwoman Debbie Davis said she was frustrated by the
board’s decision not to hear the second presentation, during
which the association would have asked the regents to allocate $30
million to student services in the budget proposal instead of the
current $6 million.

“The $30 million request was identifying a crucial need to
increase the funding of student retention programs,” she
said.

The UCSA proposal calls for an increase in funding for student
health services, campus resource centers, career counseling, and
services for disabled students. Blinker Punsalan-Wood, UCSA field
director, added that the association plans to go to the state
legislature to ask for the funding.

“We are confident that that the state legislature will
agree with us that the funding for student services should be
increased,” Punsalan-Wood said.

For now, $6 million will be going toward student retention
programs in the UC if the state legislature approves the
board’s budget proposal as it stands.