Asians Make Big Gains At UCSD

After a decade of trying to attract more minority students to UC San Diego, the percentage of Asians and Filipinos has increased markedly but the percentage of Latinos has increased only slightly and the percentage of blacks has fallen, UCSD Chancellor Richard Atkinson told the Board of Regents on Thursday.

Still, Atkinson said, the campus has done “an excellent job in developing programs that address issues of recruitment and retention” of minority students. His comments came as the regents spent a day discussing affirmative action for the student body and faculty throughout the UC system.

The effectiveness of the UCSD effort can be measured in several ways, Atkinson indicated. Compared to the percentage of minority students in the public school system, he said, “we have not done a very good job.”

“But we’ve done an excellent job at matching the ‘UC-eligible’ graduates in the state and San Diego County,” Atkinson said. “A vigorous message has to go out to the K-12 system to develop rigorous academic standards to prepare their students for UC.”

Chato Benitez, director of UCSD’s Early Outreach Program, pleaded with the regents for additional funds to help the program reach more high school students in San Diego and Imperial counties. Too many school counselors are bogged down with high caseloads and discipline problems to help minority students prepare for UC, Benitez said.

“If someone doesn’t reach these students,” he said, “they will spend the next five years, from grades 7 to 12, taking wood shop, metal shop and every kind of shop you can think of (but not taking college preparatory classes).”

Benitez said the program prepares students for UCSD by taking information to their parents about entrance requirements and financial aid, bringing the students to campus for visits and providing UCSD minority students to act as role models. The program focuses on low-income and minority students in 75 schools but its $650,000 a year budget is inadequate, he said.

For example, he noted that 65% of students in the Sweetwater Union High School District, which serves the South Bay, are minorities but that the Early Outreach Program can only reach 5% to 10% of them.

Atkinson told the regents that “substantial resources need to be assigned to . . . programs designed to ensure the success of minority students in an increasingly competitive undergraduate environment.”

And Regent Vilma S. Martinez, who served as chairman for the meeting, said UC and the Legislature have inadequately funded affirmative action efforts such as the Early Outreach Program.

But UC President David P. Gardner, at a press conference, said the program has received budget increases in each of the last three years and that further increases are planned. He said UC has used state and federal aid, as well as endowment funds for the program.

Won’t Take Sides

Gardner refused to take sides in the feud between Gov. George Deukmejian and Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig over the governor’s education budget. Several speakers had said that only through increased support for K-12 education would more minorities be able to meet the UC entrance requirements.

“I have enough trouble with my own budget--figuring out how much money the University of California needs,” Gardner said. “I am simply not conversant with what is an adequate or inadequate amount of funding for K-12, so to insert myself in the debate between the governor and the superintendent of public instruction would be inappropriate.”

Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy, an ex-officio regent, said that “efforts here at UCSD are superb” and suggested that UC business professors undertake a study to determine if K-12 teaching could be improved by attracting better teachers with higher salaries.

Atkinson told the regents that from 1976 to 1986, the percentage of Asians among UCSD undergraduates increased from 4.9% to 14.3%, Filipinos from 1.4% to 4.8% and Latinos from 6.5% to 7.8%.

During the same period, the percentage of American-Indians decreased from 0.6% to 0.4%, blacks from 5% to 3.1% and whites from 81.6% to 69.6%. Because enrollment increased 60%, the actual number of Latinos doubled and the number of blacks also increased. The university now has 13,000 undergraduate students. The percentage of Latinos and blacks at UCSD is considerably below their percentages among high school graduates both in San Diego County and the state. But both groups are represented at a higher rate than their percentages among high school students who are “UC eligible,” by having met UC’s entrance requirements.

Informational Session

The UC goal is have minorities represented in at least percentages equal to their percentages among the state’s high school graduates.

Atkinson told the regents that although all UC campuses have Early Outreach Programs, “36% of all (UC) students produced by Early Outreach Programs statewide” come from UCSD, compared to 14% for the next most successful campus.

Atkinson’s presentation, and those of several other administrators and academics, was part of an informational session, with no action slated. Gardner said he hoped press coverage would carry a message both to the Legislature and the minority community concerning UC’s commitment to enrolling and hiring more minorities.

The UCSD record in attracting minority students is similar to that of the UC system, where the percentage of Filipinos has doubled and Asian enrollment has soared because of an influx of high-achieving immigrants. In assessing all eight undergraduate campuses combined, the percentage of Latinos has declined and the percentage of blacks has increased marginally in the past eight years, according to statistics provided to the regents.

UCSD SD COUNTY UNDERGRADUATES HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES TOTAL ’85 ELIGIBLE SD COUNTY FOR UC 1976 1986 HIGH SCHOOL ADMISSION* GRADS Asian 4.9% 14.3% 5.1% 9.9% American Indian 0.6% 0.4% 0.5% 0.2% Black 5.0% 3.1% 6.4% 1.7% Hispanic 6.5% 7.8% 4.8% 4.7% Filipino 1.4% 4.8% 16.1% 5.9% White 81.6% 69.6% 67.1% 77.6% Total 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%

* UC eligibility is determined by grades, test scores or a combination. For example, a student can qualify by having a 3.3 grade point average or higher on academic courses or scoring 1,100 or better on the verbal and mathematics portions of the Scholastic Aptitude Test.

Source: UCSD