At UCI, Worthy Attention to Diversity : Chancellor Wilkening’s Council Should Solidify One of the University’s Selling Points

UC Irvine has spent more than eight months questioning, discussing and surveying its academic community on the question of diversity. Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening, who assumed the leadership of the campus nearly two years ago, is getting ready to determine who will be on the Diversity Council and what it will do.

The effort is worthwhile, and its timing could not be better. Last month a regent of the University of California, Ward Connerly, spoke out against affirmative action in the community and said he would try to propose a method of ending race-based preferences in hiring and admissions. Although diversity and affirmative action are not the same thing, they do tend to get tangled up in the oft-heated conversations on those topics.

A consultant told UCI officials that the campus seems committed to diversity at the top and at the grass roots, but needs more support for the concept in the middle. That will be the job of the Diversity Council.

UCI has performed well off-campus in promoting diversity. One example was welcoming Fullerton high school students who wanted to learn more about people from different ethnic backgrounds. Those students then helped launch cultural diversity programs at their school. UCI graduates have been active in fostering diversity as well.

In Huntington Beach, UCI graduate Alma L. Lopez has helped create a large mural at the art center that shows the various cultures in the county.

On campus too UCI has tried to blend students from varying backgrounds.

Its percentage of Asian students, 44%, is the largest in the University of California system. They benefit from events such as this month’s 11th annual Asian Pacific Awareness Conference, which has the praiseworthy goal of explaining differences among the many cultures of Asia.

However, one area where the campus needs improvement is increasing the numbers of women and minorities it hires and promotes as faculty members.

Since arriving on campus, Wilkening has consistently said she believes UCI’s diversity is an asset and a selling point. Those beliefs resonate in the community as well. Last year the Orange County Annual Survey found that nearly four out of five residents said the county needed programs to increase dialogue among ethnic groups. That was a realistic assessment of the need for all residents to get along in an increasingly diverse Orange County.