Campus Retention Committee seeks to appeal ECP policy

A student committee designed to increase retention on campus is pushing for UCLA administrators to change a policy that requires undergraduates to stay on a specific academic track.

Some students in the committee said the regulations unfairly target students from minority backgrounds.

Campus Retention Committee members emailed Chancellor Gene Block on Tuesday, asking him to appeal UCLA’s Expected Cumulative Progress policy, which requires students to reach a target number of class units every quarter.

Under the policy, students are expected to take 42 units by the end of their first year, 86 units by the end of their second year, and 132 units by the end of their third year. The UCLA Academic Senate approved the policy in 2001.

The university evaluates the number of units each student has taken every two quarters. If a student has not completed the required amount of units at the time of the check, UCLA will place an academic hold on his or her university account

To remove the hold, students are required to meet with UCLA’s academic counselors and work out a solution, such as planning the rest of their class schedules to ensure timely graduation.

In some extreme cases, students who repeatedly fail to comply with the policy may be held out of UCLA and be required to make up for their unit shortages by taking classes at another university. If students make up the units, they are then allowed to return to UCLA.

Brittany Bolden, the Campus Retention Committee chairwoman, called UCLA’s Expected Cumulative Progress policy “racist” because she said she has seen an increase in the number of students who visit the Student Retention Center to talk about the policy and that many of the students are from minority racial backgrounds.

Bolden, a fifth-year sociology and Afro-American studies student who is black, added that she thinks the policy also disproportionately affects students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds who find it financially challenging to take classes at UCLA.

“Why are we penalizing students for extenuating circumstances that are out of their control?” Bolden said.

The policy affects Bolden personally. She will not be able to return to UCLA in the spring because of the policy and must enroll herself in UCLA Extension for the three classes she needs to finish her double major. Bolden said she had problems complying with the Expected Cumulative Progress policy because of family problems and because she is a low-income student.

Bolden added she thinks undergraduates who are struggling financially or have obligations outside of their academic work – such as full-time jobs or children – cannot meet the policy’s requirements as easily as some other students.

On Tuesday, Bolden said she talked with Patricia Turner, the dean and vice provost for undergraduate education in the College of Letters and Science, about the parts of the current Expected Cumulative Progress policy she thinks are detrimental and how the administration could change the regulations to be more inclusive of all students.

According to the College Academic Counseling website, the Expected Cumulative Progress policy aims to increase counseling opportunities for students and help them graduate from UCLA in a timely manner. This allows the university to provide more admissions slots for students who want to come to UCLA.

“UCLA is committed to ensuring that all students receive the support they deserve as they progress toward a degree,” said Phil Hampton, a UCLA spokesman, in an email statement. “Expected Cumulative Progress (policy) and the work of the Campus Retention Committee are complementary, not contradictory.”

This is not the first time students have protested the Expected Cumulative Progress policy. In 2004, members of a Stop ECP! Committee in the Student Retention Center started a petition against the policy for reasons similar to Bolden’s.

In Bolden’s letter to Block, she said her complaint is connected to larger problems with UCLA’s campus climate. Specifically, she mentioned a report headed by former Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno that found UCLA’s policies and procedures for addressing racial discrimination claims among faculty to be inadequate.

She also referenced “The Black Bruins” video posted on YouTube a couple of months ago by third-year Afro-American studies student Sy Stokes, which criticized UCLA for having a small number of black male students.

Bolden said she plans to meet with Turner on Monday to continue talks about the policy.