Agreement Ends UC Santa Barbara Students’ Hunger Strike
A group of UC Santa Barbara students ended a nine-day hunger strike Friday after administrators pledged to improve the campus’s Chicano studies department, one of the oldest in the nation.
In a statement issued to protesters, administration officials agreed to double the faculty assigned to the department by 1997, and to put a proposal for a Ph.D. program on a “fast track.” The department now has the equivalent of 3.5 full-time faculty positions.
Campus administrators also said they will renew efforts to fund a community center in the nearby Isla Vista area, and attempt to increase by 20% annually recruitment of Latino students from Santa Barbara County and three contiguous counties.
Under the accord, the campus will discontinue serving grapes at its dining units in observance of a United Farm Workers boycott.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
