Faculty apathy more of a problem than politics

“Has academia become too liberal?” This was the
question posed in an article that appeared in the winter 2004 issue
of “UCLA Magazine.”

Perhaps in answering this question about our own campus, we
should consider the results of the recent faculty vote regarding
instituting a “diversity requirement.” Just as the fall
quarter was wrapping up, Academic Senate members of the UCLA
College rejected the diversity requirement proposal by a margin of
141 to 108.

When asked by a Daily Bruin editor why this particular
requirement was voted down, Eligio Martinez, the Undergraduate
Students Association Council Academic Affairs commissioner,
replied, “To me it’s racism, period.”

This conclusion seems to conflict with recent charges by
conservative critics such as David Horowitz and by groups like
Students for Academic Freedom who charge that universities
informally exclude anybody from faculty who is not liberal-minded.
Since liberals tend to support diversity-related causes, do the
numbers refute conservative charges and instead support those made
by Martinez? Hardly.

What is more telling to me about the recent faculty vote is that
less than 20 percent of those eligible actually voted. No doubt,
the fact that the vote took place at the end of the quarter and
right before the holidays contributed to the low turnout. But
surely this alone cannot explain the fact that eight out of 10
faculty members did not vote. After all, voting could be done over
the internet. So, what else might be going on?

UCLA faculty members are indeed very busy people.
Professionally, we tend to be busy looking outside of campus at
questions, problems and issues that could be informed by systematic
and rigorous research. Most of us, perhaps around 80 percent, are
much less preoccupied with campus problems and issues ““
unless they concern personnel, workload or salary. I’m just
as guilty of this.

These tendencies are reinforced in large part by the
institutional culture and reward structure for UCLA faculty. I
suspect that these tendencies prevented many from voting. Because
of those outward preoccupations, many probably ended up feeling too
ill-informed about the requirement to vote, or wrongly viewed this
as being disconnected from their work.

For me, the biggest problem revealed by last month’s vote
is faculty apathy toward important educational issues on campus.
Sadly, the college faculty failed to send the resounding message
that would more conclusively settle an important 17-year-long
curricular struggle with students who feel disenfranchised.

The faculty seemingly also forgot to consider respectfully that
many of our colleagues spent countless hours developing, reviewing
and debating this requirement.

The vote also debunks the misguided charges of widespread
liberalism on campus. Conservative critics should note that
liberalism is not rampant at UCLA. At least, it’s not being
institutionalized to provide, in Professor Raymond Knapp’s
words, “a mechanism for ensuring that courses addressing
diversity issues will continue to be developed and offered at
UCLA.”

If Professor Lynn Vavreck’s observation in this
winter’s UCLA Magazine that “there are more political
liberals than conservatives on faculty” is correct, the
liberals seem to self-impose limits on their own liberalism.
Curiously, the limits may be less politically and educationally
motivated and more professionally driven by apathy toward our own
campus issues, particularly those raised by undergraduates.

In any case, the weak rejection of a diversity requirement
clearly suggests that the charges of widespread liberalism in
academia, at least at UCLA, seem to be overstated.

If I were a UCLA student or a parent of one, I would be less
concerned about faculty, liberal or conservative, indoctrinating
students with their political viewpoints. Let’s give our
students more credit for their own learning. They did, after all,
call for a diversity requirement.

Instead, I would be much more concerned that a majority of the
faculty does not seem to care much about their students’
educational views. What does this say about UCLA as an educational
institution?

Chang is an associate professor at UCLA’s Graduate
School of Education and Information Studies.