The vote taken by the faculty of the UCLA College last month
concerning the diversity requirement should have come as no
surprise. Although discussions on diversity have concentrated on
the lack of a diversity requirement and the continued decline of
students of color attending the University of California’s
two flagship campuses, one major component of a diverse campus
climate has gone unnoticed, or rather ignored: the lack of faculty
diversity.
Diversity is not only about its study or the statement that our
residence in Los Angeles allows us to learn about diversity.
Diversity is about experiencing it in order to learn and understand
the realities of the world in which we live.
And faculty are part of the core of this university and should
also be diverse. Realistically, the number of faculty of color has
remained low, without any significant increases over the past 30
years. Some departments still have the same faculty members of
color they hired over 30 yeas ago when they struggled in taking the
first concrete step toward diversity.
While UCLA touts itself as one of the most diverse staffs in the
entire UC system, statistics demonstrate the complete opposite.
In a report presented to the chancellor’s Advisory Group
on Diversity prepared by the Staff Affirmative Action Office of the
Campus Human Resources Office, statistics showed that from 1984 to
2004, 75.8 percent of all faculty appointments made at UCLA went to
whites, while Asian American faculty appointments came in second,
at 15.4 percent. Clearly, the number of faculty appointed over the
past 20 years has been racially disproportionate to
California’s needs.
In a report prepared for Sen. Richard Alarcon and Assemblywoman
Wilma Chan on diversity within the UC system, data show the number
of tenured white faculty members increased by 853 to 972 from 1996
to 2002, while Chicano/Latino faculty members increased only from
58 to 61, and blacks increased from 37 to 38 during that same
period.
Additionally, the number of female faculty members remain
significantly lower than their male counterparts. From 1984 to
2004, 72 percent of all faculty appointments at UCLA went to male
professors. Currently, UCLA ranks sixth out of the eight
undergraduate UC campuses in terms of female tenured and
tenure-track appointments.
Not only is UCLA one of the worst in terms of faculty diversity,
but it does little to retain its few faculty that are
representative of its diverse constituency.
UCLA failed to retain faculty members such as Pauline
Agbayani-Siewert, the only tenured Pilipina professor on campus.
The UCLA School of Public Affairs refused to make a matching offer
to the one she received from California State University Los
Angeles.
UCLA has done little to increase faculty diversity at UCLA and
to address the Faculty Diversity Initiative, a proposal created by
the four ethnic studies research centers at UCLA. To this day the
proposal has sat on Chancellor Albert Carnesale’s desk
without any action since it was drafted in February 2003.
Retaining our current female faculty and faculty of color should
be a primary goal, but we must also expand our level of recruiting
for able faculty in departmental searches.
As members of the UCLA campus, we should be worried about the
decline of wide-ranging opinions, experiences and presentations by
students and faculty. The “unwelcome mat” for faculty
of color can be removed, but it takes student involvement to ensure
that it happens.
The need for diversity goes far beyond the classroom. It extends
to having a diverse student body and a diverse faculty. UCLA finds
itself at a crossroads in the present time. It can either make
institutional efforts to diversify the faculty or continue with
business as usual.
Martinez is the USAC Academic Affairs commissioner.