Senate reviews campus issues

  DAVE HILL/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Chancellor
Albert Carnesale speaks about rising energy prices
at this year’s first Academic Senate meeting which was held on
Tuesday.

By Marcelle Richards
Daily Bruin Reporter

The Academic Senate convened Tuesday to review issues on campus,
including the approval of a department merger and discussion of the
dual admissions plan.

The Senate’s Legislative Assembly includes department
representatives and visiting faculty which form the lifeblood of
UCLA’s faculty influence on the campus and its agenda.

Chancellor Albert Carnesale began the meeting by giving a campus
review before the discussion of agenda items.

The last meeting’s discussion on gender equity in faculty
hiring was brought up again to address a list of problems
afflicting female faculty.

Faculty members recently raised concerns with the state
legislature over the low number of women hired throughout the
university.

“It had been pointed out that it was sometimes difficult
to get salary information, even though it was public
information,” Carnesale said. “We now have a draft
policy and it is being circulated.”

Additionally, the policy on maternity leave is vague and often
unfairly administered among faculty, while on-campus child care is
still struggling to maintain itself as a service, Carnesale
continued.

He added that UCLA is currently suffering skyrocketing energy
bills, though the energy use at UCLA has not wavered.

“Our problem is that our cogen plant runs on natural
gas,” he said, referring to the power plant located on
campus. “The price has nearly quintupled, it costs $1 to 1.5
million more than it used to.”

Carnesale said conservation is key in order to reduce costs and
aid other areas, such as Northern California and San Diego that are
more prone to black outs and shortages.

As Carnesale stepped off the podium, Undergraduate Council chair
Elizabeth Bjork took the stage to speak on the merger of the
microbiology and immunology department with the microbiology and
molecular genetics department.

She said the merger is analogous to a couple who has lived
together for years without problems ““ the time has come to
tie the knot.

A merger between a department from the College of Letters &
Science has never before been combined with a department of the
School of Medicine.

“Although this merger was a friendly one, versus one that
was being imposed, we felt we should review this merger more so
than a precedented merger,” Bjork said. “In our various
interviews and discussions we became convinced that it would not be
the case that the undergraduate program would suffer.”

A wider variety of courses and research opportunities are some
of the foreseen perks for undergraduates in the now-merged
department, Bjork said. Present graduate programs will be phased
out as a single combined departmental program is implemented.

According to Bjork, the department is still working to outline
the duties of faculty, and determine how to distribute duties
without excluding anyone.

The final item on the agenda dealt with the dual admissions
proposal which would provide a fourth path to the UC system to
increase transfer rates.

Students are admitted to UCs by either falling within the top
12.5 percent of statewide applicants, ranking in the top 4 percent
at their high schools, or transferring after community college.

Dual admissions targets high school students in their junior
year who are in the top 12.5 percent at their high school, but not
necessarily in the top 12.5 percent of students throughout the
state.

By the proposal, a contract is made between the community
college student and a UC that will grant eligibility upon
satisfaction of UC requirements, according to according to Dorothy
Perry, guest faculty speaker from UC San Francisco.

“If we are going to embark on this, we are going to do
this right,” she said. “If anything, the interaction
with community colleges would improve the rate of transfers for
everyone.”

UC transfer rates are currently 20 percent below the targeted
goal of 15,000 students.

Complications arise, however, for universities such as UCLA and
UC Berkeley which are near capacity.

UCLA currently receives 25 percent of the UC system’s
transfer students, which is more than any other campus.

Tidal Wave II is expected to bring 60,000 students to the UC
system in the next decade. Dual admissions would increase that
figure, forcing UCLA to admit fewer students than its sister
campuses, said Perry.

Nonetheless, Perry said an overall increase in the percentage of
underrepresented minorities in the system is expected.

“Underrepresented minorities are greatly overrepresented
at community colleges,” she said. “We would have an
opportunity, perhaps, to attract a more diverse
population.”