IRVINE : UCI Is Letting Them Down, Asians Say

UC Irvine has not addressed the concerns of its Asian students as well as other University of California campuses with smaller Asian populations have, a student group charged Tuesday.

During a daylong conference entitled “The Asian/Pacific American Phenomenon: Progress and Counter-Progress” scheduled as part of Asian Heritage week, Thomas Hei, chairman of the Asian/Pacific Student Assn., charged that UCI has failed to make concerted efforts to hire Asian faculty members and administrators and that it offers too few classes in Asian affairs.

“It is built into the structure that certain groups are disfavored,” Hei said. “We have no high-level administrators we can go to for guidance.”

Hei added that when Asians are hired, UCI “doesn’t really make a good effort to keep them. It’s frustrating when role models you’ve grown to know leave.”

Gene Awakuni, assistant vice chancellor for student affairs at UC Santa Barbara and a former UCI faculty member, agreed that UCI is “not doing very well” in encouraging Asians to stay on the faculty. “Asian staff ranks are dwindling,” said Awakuni, who was the keynote speaker at the conference. “We had a small but very committed core group (of UCI faculty and staff members) five years ago,” but the departure of three people reduced the group by half, he said.

The UCI faculty is about 8% Asian, and most are in the sciences, Hei said.

Hei also cited statistics showing that although Asians make up 34% of the student population and account for 41% of the freshman class--representing the largest percentage of Asians on any UC campus--the school offers few courses in Asian-American affairs. He noted that UC Berkeley offers at least 26 classes in Asian-American subjects and that UCLA has 34 classes in Asian affairs.

“At Irvine there are two classes offered, one in Asian-American culture,” Hei said. The other class is in Asian-American psychology, he said.

UCI Assistant Vice Chancellor Ron Wilson, who also is the campus ombudsman, responded that the administration “is very much receptive to the idea” of an Asian-American studies program but said financial constraints are slowing efforts to introduce new courses.

“We are in severe budgetary times. . . . UC has been significantly impacted by that,” Wilson said. “I’d like to see (an Asian studies program) next fall. Maybe we will scale it down, but we do (want to) implement it. The budget shouldn’t eliminate the ideas.”