General education reform is long overdue

Mosqueda is a sociology and Chicana/o studies student. She
serves as a USAC general representative and as the student
representative to the GE Governance Committee and Undergraduate
Council.

By Cindy Mosqueda

Over the past few weeks there has been an increase in the
discussion of a diversity requirement within the general education
for UCLA undergraduates. However, something is missing from this
discussion ““ the many years of organizing by both student and
faculty in support of a diversity requirement.

It is important that we put today’s struggle for a
diversity requirement in a historical context. For over 15 years at
UCLA students have actively sought to make their general education
relevant to the lives of the diverse student body. At the same time
other University of California students also demanded the same
thing at their school. The discussion began in 1983 at the
California Assembly when assemblywoman Teresa Hughes authored
ACR-71, which requested that the UC review its policies regarding
ethnic operations. Two years later, UCLA students began the long
process of curricular reform.

In the spring of 1989 the faculty of the College of Letters and
Sciences appointed a task force to consider a requirement. As
always, student input in this committee was integral to their work.
The committee also had representation from all ethnic studies and
women’s studies programs. Within a year, the committee had
completed the proposal by which all first-year students would take
a “lower-division foundation course, “˜Critical Studies
of Race, Gender and Ethnicity,'” but it would count
toward a GE requirement in humanities or social sciences. Students
would then take a second course, which would also count toward a GE
requirement in the humanities or social sciences. The second course
would be chosen from a list of both lower and upper division
classes in ethnic and gender studies. This proposal sought to
diversify the existing requirements. Unfortunately, the Executive
Committee dropped it, citing “cost, jurisdiction and
ideological differences” in May 1990.

In the fall of 1990, the Academic Senate established a second
task force to develop the “American Cultures and Diversity
Requirement” rather than the original idea of a two-course
Ethnic/Gender Studies general education requirement. Students were
only given minimal input into this proposal, which called for
undergraduates to take a one-quarter American cultures course.

During Spring Quarter of 1992 student leaders took a 199
independent studies course to organize a curricular reform and
implement the diversity requirement, submitting their proposal in
August of 1992. But shortly thereafter professors Daniel Kielson
and Matthew Malkan submitted a task force minority report opposing
the proposal, stating UCLA’s diverse student body was a way
students could learn about diversity. Vice provost Carol Hartzog
eventually cited a lack of resources as her rationale for opposing
the proposed requirement.

In 1994, another committee formed to redo the GE requirements at
UCLA. This committee completed the proposal in winter of 1997. In
January 1997, underrepresented student organizations and USAC
formed a Student Committee for an Ethnic and Gender Studies
Requirement. However, students did not support the proposal that
was submitted to the Undergraduate Council because it was too
watered down and broad. So, the issue lost supporters and the
movement quieted down, until now.

Once again USAC members and student groups, such as those that
make up the Affirmative Action Coalition, have restarted the
15-year battle for a diversity requirement.

As of this week, the voting members of the Academic Senate have
already received the Regulation 458 (C)(D)(E) Ballot to vote on the
proposed changes. As you may already know, the proposed general
education requirements for Letters and Science students are 10
rather than 14 courses. If the faculty approves the proposed
changes, L&S students will be required to take three courses of
five units each in the humanities and social sciences. Rather than
taking three courses each in the physical and life sciences,
students will now have to take only two. If approved, the proposed
changes will go into affect for incoming freshmen in the fall of
2002 and for transfer students in the fall of 2004.

The General Education Governance Committee chaired by professor
David Rodes has formed ad hoc work groups made of students and
faculty to establish the guidelines for general education courses
within the three foundation areas. Although students are now part
of the process, they were not present at the countless meetings
over the summer of 2000 when the GE Governance Committee discussed
the changes and the vision of what general education at UCLA should
be.

However, many students oppose the proposed changes because they
lack student input, are being done in haste, and contain no
diversity requirement.

Students are not asking that the GE Governance Committee go back
to square one of the GE reform process. We realize that the process
has been long and arduous. Students are asking that faculty vote
when they receive their ballots so that students can be part of the
discussion again and a diversity requirement can be considered once
more.

The proposed changes in the social sciences would require
students to take one course in social analysis, a second in
historical analysis and the third from either subgroup. The
Affirmative Action Coalition and USAC feel that a diversity
requirement would fit well within the third course. Students could
then take one course from a list in ethnic, gender and LGBT
studies.

The movement for a diversity GE requirement has been long and
arduous, but it is still alive over 15 years later. UCLA is still
the only UC campus without some type of diversity requirement. It
is time that the original proposal for a diversity requirement made
by Chancellor Charles Young in 1987 is realized and that students
have a true general education.