Diversity-related requirement for College of Letters and Science awaits approval by faculty
By Jillian Beck
April 17, 2012 8:07 a.m.
Proponents of a diversity-related requirement are hoping that the third time is the charm for its inclusion to the UCLA College of Letters and Science General Education criteria.
Students and faculty members have been pushing for a diversity-related requirement for about 25 years, but UCLA remains the only University of California campus without such a requirement. The university has attempted to introduce a diversity-related requirement twice before without success ““ once in 1987, and again in 2004.
Before a requirement can be implemented, the proposal must be passed by a majority of the College faculty and then the Academic Senate.
As a potential College faculty-wide vote approaches, it is still unclear whether the outcome will be different this time around.
In 1987, then-Chancellor Charles E. Young proposed the addition of an ethnic and gender studies requirement to the GE curriculum. But rather than imposing a requirement, the Academic Senate’s Legislative Assembly approved three resolutions aimed at incorporating multicultural studies into all of undergraduate education in 1993.
In 2004, a “diversity requirement” was approved by the College Faculty Executive Committee, the governing body of the College of Letters and Science faculty. The proposal, however, was voted down when it was put to a faculty-wide vote.
This time, the proposed addition to undergraduate general education is called the “Community and Conflict in the Modern World” requirement. Supporters of the proposal say it is different from previous requirements because of its broad academic range and comprehensive definition.
The most recent proposal for the requirement is much more detailed and explicit than previous proposals about what type of courses are meant to fall under the requirement, said Kyle McJunkin, director of curriculum coordination.
Charles Buchanan, a professor of physics and astronomy, has been at UCLA since 1968 and was involved in the original diversity requirement discussions in the early 1990s. He said he thinks the “Community and Conflict in the Modern World” requirement has a good chance of passing because it is much more specific than past proposals in laying out what courses would fulfill it.
The historically low turnout in faculty-wide votes, however, could pose a problem for this year’s proposal. Only about 20 percent of eligible College faculty members voted in 2004 when the last diversity-related requirement was voted down.
Faculty engagement and awareness of the current proposal is still low.
Only about half a dozen faculty members have emailed with questions or comments about the requirement since the faculty commentary period, a month-long time interval when faculty are asked to comment on the proposal, officially started on April 2, said McJunkin, who monitors the Faculty Executive Committee Chair email account.
“We’re in a very similar situation (as we were in 2004),” said Layhannara Tep, the 2009-2010 Undergraduate Students Association Council academic affairs commissioner who led the 2010 campaign for a diversity-related requirement. “But you never know what’s going to happen.”
The students, faculty and administrators involved in drafting this year’s proposal took a different approach than in the past, taking into consideration faculty critiques and concerns with the 2004 proposal, said Suza Khy, the 2010-2011 USAC academic affairs commissioner and one of three student members in the workgroup in charge of drafting the original version of the proposal.
In response to a common critique of past proposed requirements, the current proposal strays from the word “diversity,” focusing on conceptual ideas of community and conflict.
“Those of us who study and teach courses taking a look at human difference don’t often use the word diversity when doing our research and in teaching classes,” said Mark Sawyer, an associate professor of political science and member of the workgroup. Sawyer specializes in the black experience in Latin America and the Spanish Caribbean and intergroup interactions in the United States and Los Angeles County.
Sawyer said he thinks the proposal is framed broadly enough, including a wider range of courses than in the past, that it has a chance to pass.
“I’d hope the faculty would get behind this idea,” he said.
Supporters hope the time spent working to implement a requirement will pay off.
“I think it’s unfortunate that it has taken so long for UCLA to have a requirement like this,” Tep said.
But she added that the time and effort spent crafting a requirement led to a proposal inclusive of a broad range of communities and issues.
The 2010-11 academic year was spent promoting student involvement in the development of the requirement with a course through the Campus Retention Committee, a student-run project dedicated to increasing graduation rates for students from underserved communities. The course was focused on the history of attempts to get a diversity requirement at UCLA.
Last year, students showed their support for a diversity-related GE requirement during the undergraduate student government elections.
This year, the USAC Academic Affairs Commission and Students for Diversity, a student group that aims to promote diversity, held information sessions to encourage students to talk to their professors about voting for the requirement.
The faculty can voice their concerns or ask questions about the proposed requirement until the Faculty Executive Committee meets on April 27 to decide whether or not to put the requirement to a faculty-wide vote.
