| UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ |
AS/SCP/1353
|
COMMITTEE ON
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
Annual
Report, 2001-02
To the Academic Senate, Santa Cruz Division:
The Committee on Affirmative Action (CAA) is pleased to report that our campus still holds the best track record on faculty diversity in the UC system: women comprise 35% of our faculty (compared to 24% UC-wide) and non-whites comprise 25% of our faculty (compared to 19% UC-wide). However, this record is not an improvement over previous years because we are losing as many underrepresented faculty as we are gaining them due to competitive offers elsewhere, the lack of affordable housing in Santa Cruz, spousal employment issues, and the cultural climate on this campus (according to our last two retention surveys). We therefore believe that it is important for this campus to continue doing what it can within the letter of the law to recruit, hire, and retain a diverse faculty for all the reasons given in Resolution AS/SCP/1282 on Advancing Faculty Diversity and Excellence, which was passed by this body on October 19, 2000. To this end, CAA continued to work closely with Patti Hiramoto (EEO/AA), Barbara Brogan (Academic Human Resource), Campus Provost Simpson, Chancellor Greenwood, and various Academic Senate officers and committees this past year to keep diversity issues on the forefront and to devise new strategies to further advance faculty diversity.
We wish to commend Campus Provost Simpson for his commitment and innovation in establishing the Diversity Fund Program, which offers departments up to $2,000 for department proposals that will help diversify applicant pools in the short and long run. CAA assisted in reviewing 17 proposals last year and recommended funding 9 of the proposals (totaling $13,400) that were innovative and effective in meeting the spirit and criteria of the Diversity Program. We were pleased that Campus Provost Simpson decided to fund an additional proposal, increasing the total amount to $15,400. Despite state budget cutbacks, the Program will continue, and we encourage faculty and departments to take advantage of this opportunity to enhance faculty diversity. The next application deadline is October 15, 2002. For details, please see our website http://senate.ucsc.edu/caa/index.html.
CAA continued to play an active role in reviewing the Divisional Long-Range Plans because we believe that this is where we can be most influential in advancing diversity through excellence on a long-term basis in accordance with Resolution 1282-8. Our report on the Preliminary Plans last year had called attention to the lack of consciousness, urgency, and innovation on the part of the Divisions in including diversity goals and strategies into their curricular plans. Our review of the Final Plans commended the Divisions for doing a better job of addressing diversity issues, but we identified a number of programs that lacked concrete strategies for implementing “best practices." We offered specific suggestions to each Division with regard to enhancing diversity in their curriculum and their faculty. For a copy of our report, please see our website.
Review of Campus Curriculum
Initiative (CCI)
CCI was established in 1999 by Campus Provost Simpson to provide additional positions to departments in an effort to enhance curriculum and faculty diversity. This innovative program has since become a model program for other campuses in the UC system. However, we have been quite disappointed with the slow progress on this campus to fill the 8 positions originally allocated by Campus Provost Simpson in 1999. Only 3 of the positions have been filled, and only 1 out of 5 CCI searches conducted in 2001-02 resulted in a successful hire. We investigated the situation through interviews with members of the various CCI search committees, as well as the deans involved in each search. Our interviews indicated that one major reason for the unsuccessful recruitments was the lack of commitment and investment in the position on the part of some departments. Because we believe that the CCI program provides us with the best opportunity to promote diversity in the post-209 era, we urged Campus Provost Simpson to continue the program and recommended that the following recruitment strategies be considered in future CCI searches. We list them here as ideas that may help departments with other searches as well.
Membership on the Senate
Advisory Committee (SAC)
We remain adamant that CAA needs to become a member of the Senate Advisory Committee, the advisory body to the Chair of the Santa Cruz Division, if this campus really takes affirmative action and diversity issues seriously. Given the changing demographics of California and the hiring phase that we are now entering, our input on curriculum and faculty diversity is more crucial than ever. Moreover, diversity issues and efforts intersect with the work of many committees now represented on SAC. We find SAC’s rationale that it is too large to admit another committee representative unfounded and unacceptable. Our research shows that on at least five other UC campuses, the affirmative action committee is a member of the executive committee. Certainly, the most progressive campus on affirmative action and diversity in the UC system can do better. We therefore plan to continue working with Chair Blumenthal to seek a change in our bylaws that will allow CAA to become a member of SAC. We hope that you will vote in favor of this action when the issue is raised in the near future.
Respectfully submitted,
COMMITTEE ON AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
Bettina Aptheker
Faye Crosby (F) EEO/AA Director
Jonathan Fox (F) Patti Hiramoto
Karlton Hester (W, S)
Nathan Mackey
Christina Ravelo
Avril Thorne (W, S)
Judy Yung, Chair
August 30, 2002