Budget revisions slash funds for outreach programs

By Andrew Edwards and Kelly Rayburn
DAILY BRUINS SENIOR STAFF
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[email protected]

Winston Doby left the UCLA administration and began work as the
University of California’s vice president of educational
outreach on Jan. 1. A little over five months later, UC outreach
took a massive hit.

Gov. Gray Davis’ May budgetary revisions recommended cuts
that would leave UC outreach with only about 60 percent of the
state funding it received last year.

“The extent of the cuts was a total surprise,” Doby
said.

Doby is not alone in his bewilderment. Even given the
state’s darkened fiscal situation, few expected a governor
who once voted against a policy banning the consideration of race
in UC admissions to cut tens of millions from programs designed to
help increase diversity in California’s post-affirmative
action era.

Jeannie Oakes, a UCLA professor who serves on the UC’s
outreach advisory board, called the cuts a “shock.”

Max Espinoza, special consultant to the Assembly Budget
Committee and former UC student regent, said cuts were severe, and
there was no way the committee would support them.

Finally, Jack Sutton, executive director of the outreach
steering committee, said the cuts would “really change the
face of outreach.”

UCLA’s Executive Outreach Committee rolled up its sleeves
immediately, meeting to begin the deal with the changed status of
outreach ““ to assess damage.

Though it is still too early to understand all the ramifications
of the proposed cuts, Sutton said that under the revised budget,
the UC will continue outreach programs toward individual students,
though the proposed cuts are “pretty devastating in terms of
the school side of outreach.”

Davis’ budget completely eliminates funding for UC
partnerships with K-12 schools. The 2001-02 budget had already cut
the partnership program $600,000.

Partnerships were enacted to maintain diversity, Sutton
said.

A 1995 outreach task force found that 80 percent of
disadvantaged students were members of underrepresented groups.

To encourage underrepresented student enrollment, the UC formed
partnerships with schools in disadvantaged areas to increase the
number of students eligible for the UC by 100 percent, Sutton
said.

Partnerships included long-term plans for teacher development
and involved students and parents in an effort to create college
cultures in schools that, “as far as the UC is concerned, are
underperforming,” Sutton said.

“The impact is going to be on those schools,” he
said.

Doby, meanwhile, said he hopes to use the strong relationship he
has with the UC’s partnership high schools to continue making
connections with them, though funds for doing so will largely be
gone.

“We ought to build on (those relationships) rather than
starting from scratch,” he said.

With reports from Robert Salonga, Daily Bruin Staff.