A Commitment to Building Bridges : Departing UCI Vice Chancellor Sees Progress--and More to Do--in Race Issues on Campus

Horace Mitchell, UC Irvine’s vice chancellor of student affairs and its highest-ranking African American, will leave April 1 to become a vice chancellor at UC Berkeley.

Mitchell, 50, the third-highest-ranking administrator at UCI, oversees a $60-million budget and manages more than 450 full-time employees and several hundred part-time employees. At Berkeley, as vice chancellor of business and administrative services, Mitchell will manage a budget of $190 million and a staff of about 2,400.

He recently talked to The Times about issues such as race relations on campus, affirmative action and Black History Month, which begins Wednesday.

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Q. As UCI’s top black administrator, did you have second thoughts about leaving?

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A. It’s certainly something you think about. On the whole, I’m one of the top managers of the university. But yes, the fact that I’m African American has a lot of importance to a number of people. Whenever an individual leaves a position like the one I’m in, there’s concern about who will fill it. Some people fear there will be a loss of an African American presence at the upper levels of administration.

In terms of the county, I’ve been very active in the African American community. There’s some sense that the African American community’s relationship to the university might be lost when I go, and here again my approach is to be reassuring because there are other people at the university who have the ability to do most of the things I’ve been doing.

But I believe it’s very important that there continue to be a high-level African American presence at UCI. That doesn’t mean necessarily that an African American should be in my position, because it doesn’t work like that. But it’s important that the presence be there.

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Q. What do you think of the proposal that was presented to the UC Board of Regents to eliminate affirmative action in terms of student admissions and employee hiring?

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A. I think it would be a terrible mistake, and I think part of what we have to do is be specific about what we’re talking about when we talk about affirmative action. What we’re talking about at this university is adding to the diversity of our student body, faculty and staff to represent the diversity of the state of California. I think it’s very reasonable for us to be doing that.

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Q. Do you think it will be increasingly difficult for the university to pursue this goal in light of the current political climate?

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A. If we look particularly at affirmative action, there is sometimes the notion that lesser-qualified applicants are being admitted or that lesser-qualified employees are being hired, and that’s not really what affirmative action is all about. Affirmative action is about creating opportunities for people who have not had opportunities in the past, and it is about appointing people who are very well-qualified for the positions.

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Q. What do you think of Black History Month?

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A. Ideally, our society should incorporate diversity well enough that diversity becomes the new mainstream. That would be my hope for the future. Until then, I think we do have to do things that make up for the absence of sufficient attention toward diversity in educational institutions and society in general.

Sometimes, people see this as instances where differences are highlighted. But in order to really understand our commonality, we have to understand our differences. People who don’t want to understand differences are saying, ‘Forget your differences and be like me,’ and I don’t think that’s a good direction for the future.

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Q. How do you feel the university has responded to its growing diversity?

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A. I think the university has responded well. Around 1987, we developed a statement called “Principles of Community” that defined the parameters of the kind of campus climate we want to have at UCI in terms of appreciating and recognizing diversity. The faculty also passed new degree requirements that were effective the fall of 1990, where each student is required to take at least one course that deals with diversity in the United States and one course that deals with international issues.

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Q. A few years ago, Asian American students protested UCI’s lack of an Asian American studies program. Where does that proposal stand?

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A. In the last few years, we have been working to develop an Asian American studies program. I think there’s a very strong campus commitment to that program.

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Q. Do you think the university has done a good job of recruiting minority faculty?

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A. I think the university has a strong commitment to the recruitment of minorities and women. But I think we would all say we are not nearly where we want to be. There are new initiatives that are currently being developed to enhance our ability to be more effective in that area.

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Q. How are race relations on campus?

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AI think we’ve made tremendous progress over the years in terms of intergroup relations among students. While you can’t prevent people from having certain attitudes or engaging in certain behaviors, you set a climate about what’s acceptable.

The issues for students on this campus have to do with curricular issues, whether we have an Asian American studies program and how fast we’re moving to develop that. Students are also concerned about making sure the faculty is broadly representative of the students who are here.

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Q. Where do you think the African American community in Orange County is heading?

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A. In the time we’ve been here in Orange County--that’s my family and I--we’ve seen a lot of changes. When we came to Irvine in 1978, we noticed that we met a pocket of people here and a pocket of people there, in terms of African Americans. But people were few and far between, so we decided to have a New Year’s Day soul food potluck. It became a way of linking people together. Then, we did it the next year and the next year, and all of sudden we did it for about five years. Then, as the diversity in the general area continued to grow, we decided to make it an international potluck, so there were Asian Americans, Chicanos and white Americans who became part of that. There are a lot of efforts that go on like that among African Americans in Orange County, and I think that’s really important.

What’s been happening is that people have been trying hard to make connections because there is no one African American community in Orange County. Many years ago, Santa Ana had a large African American community, but that population is really dispersed. And so what I’ve said to people is that while there’s not a physical African American community, there’s certainly a sense of community among large numbers of African Americans. . . .

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Q. What are your thoughts about leaving UCI and Orange County?

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A. I have mixed feelings. I believe that I have been supported in a variety of things that I wanted to do here in the county and the university. And as people have become aware of my leaving, I’ve gotten tremendous responses from people expressing some mixed emotions about my leaving.

There are some great people in Orange County doing some important things, and I think the county has a good future. But there are still a lot of problems, and issues of diversity continue to be issues that we need to pay attention to.

I generally feel good about what I’ve done. I feel that while there are plenty of issues to be settled, we’ve made progress in certain areas and there are people in leadership roles or who are prepared to take leadership roles who can continue to advance common agendas.

So I feel that it’s OK to leave, and that it’s time to take up another challenge.