EDUCATION WATCH : Keeping the Lid On

An agreement signed this week between students and administrators pledges UC Irvine to hire four professors to teach in a new Asian-American studies program. It was a good example of how to defuse a potentially volatile situation by keeping the channels of communication open and not letting either side get painted into a corner.

Asian-American students, who took turns fasting for 24 hours, called off a hunger strike when the university agreed to live up to its promise of three years ago to institute the program.

At a rally before the signing, students were joined by participants in the UCLA hunger strike that ended Monday, and which offered a cautionary note to UCI.

Seven UCLA students and a professor subsisted on water for almost 14 days in demanding a Chicano studies department. The protests at UCLA sadly resulted in $30,000 in vandalism to a faculty center and came after the Chicano studies issue had been considered for three years, with little progress.

Unfortunately, some politicians injected themselves into the quarrel. Negotiators finally reached a compromise Monday.

UC Irvine students were not violent, but some did wrongly shout down acting Chancellor L. Dennis Smith when he spoke to them in April. Smith deserves credit for working out this week’s agreement, and for letting students know that the administration is willing to talk to them.

UCI has showed how to keep the process moving. It must now live up to its promises to avoid the kind of crisis UCLA faced.