In an ongoing study of diversity in the University of California, social psychology graduate student John Johnson compiled data that puts UC Santa Cruz near the bottom of the list when it comes to the graduation rates of undergraduate black males.
According to the numbers Johnson synthesized, UCSC graduated 54 percent of its black male students, as opposed to 80 percent of Asian female students.
According to this article in the student newspaper, the study has already produced “favorable responses.” Apparently one of them is the sudden appearance of Dean of Student Affairs Alma Sifuentes.
At this point in the study, the results show that “UCSC is one of the worst campuses in terms of the retention of African-American students,” Johnson said.
Yet the study has already seen favorable responses from administrators and students. In a recent meeting of the African/Black Student Alliance, Dean of Student Affairs Alma Sifuentes expressed her interest in getting to know the African-American community.
“It’s taken me a while to get here,” she said. “But I am here as a resource for you and I hope to be more visible in the future.”
No doubt the increased visibility of Dean Fuentes, and the new effort to “reach out” that will surely follow in her wake, will work wonders on the black male graduation rate.
Predictably, the explanation quickly offered is racism. Paula Powell, founding director of the African-American Research and Cultural Center at UCSC, said, on cue:
The results are post-[Proposition] 209 evidence of institutional racism…. The disparities should be alarming.
The article presented no comparable graduation rate data from before the passage of Prop. 209, and it’s also not clear whether Ms. Powell believes that graduation requirements for minorities were lower before Prop. 209 required equal treatment. (If Prop. 209 is somehow the culprit, it did not affect all UC campuses equally. UC Irvine, for example, graduates 80% of its black males students.) One black male student, who did not wish be identified, did complain that
We don’t have enough resources just as African/Black students. The AARCC (African American Resource and Cultural Center) doesn’t really reach out to the black males.
I suppose one way of framing the question raised by this data is whether the university should “reach out” more or the students should “reach in” and make more of an effort.
“In general people regard [graduation rates] as how well the university is responding for particular students,” Martin Chemers, chair of the psychology department, said. “If a minority group is graduating at a much less normal rate than the dominant students, then that is a signal that there is a problem.”
Of course, the problem could be that the students are not responding well to the university, rather than the university not responding well to the students.
Looking at the campus newspaper, I would say that one of the reasons that black males feel unwelcome at UCSC is the dominance of the homosexual activist on the campus.
If anyone has noticed lately, in the pecking order of political correctness, blacks are below gays on the list. A heterosexual black male at UCSC would probably feel more out of place on UCSC than either white or asian males.
Oh, God! The answer to this one is so obvious that it must be ignored.
The black males that UCSC is recruiting were unqualified academically when they entered the university. They flunk out because the quota mongers insisted on putting them in a position where they were destined to fail.
About the only thing UCSC can do to remedy this situation is to dumb down their curriculum even further, if that is possible.
Perhaps, just maybe, the solution is to put these young men in the proper educational institution for their needs and level of academic achievement. Community college? Remedial education?
My wife and I live near UCSC and always enjoyed campus walks and reading in its libraries, however, we wouldn’t dream of sending our two children there. The annual list of the most popular majors are either social science or liberal arts fluff.
I recall a cute UCSC sophomore lass I befriended years ago. I left Santa Cruz without telling her, saved my money, and entered graduate business school. When I returned after two years and informed the now graduating senior what I had done, she thought I was a capitalistic pig.
I’ve often wondered how long it took her to recover from UCSC and put her life back together.
“The results are post-[Proposition] 209 evidence of institutional racism…”
Life as a narrative based on a priori assumptions. Everything is evidence that the sound bites and mental images that populate the narrative are real, no matter how translucent or irrelevant or contradictory (such as using equality of outcome arguments to identify inequality of opportunity). No rational thought given to competing explanations.
At an agenda and policy committee meeting I attended recently a “diversity official” from the Dean’s office was presenting data, from anonymous questionnaires, to show that the university had a long way to go in making the campus warm and fuzzy for diversity. One piece of evidence was that large number of students had stated that they did not feel comfortable expressing their views in class, which said official determined to be evidence that liberal voices were being squelched by the white patriarchy. When I pointed out that there are a large proportion of conservative students on campus, because of the agriculture and engineering focus of the university, and it might be those students who were reluctant to speak their minds, most of the other faculty looked at me as if they had never considered that possibility. It didn’t fit the narrative.
Much truth: if you toss those with lower academic skills into a tough school some will not improve enough to survive.
And the correct action is remedial. A year of two is of no consequence if the person can catch up. Not all can, nor could all of any race.
superd is really speaking of a scramble for power. No identified group wants to lose influence. It is inevitable that officially favored minorities will quarrel.
an example (not academic). Decades ago I needed to work at a customers HQ in Los Angeles. The company was Japanese. I quickly saw the senior staff at war – American born Japanese v. “real” Japanese. Those who spoke Japanese fluently and those who did not.
Nothing overt occured but any promotion meant a fight. The hatred was intense.
Whites were not perceived as a group. They were mere individuals. Little or no resentment was felt when one was promoted.
Elliott sounds like he made the right move for him. In college I thought mose social science and liberal arts (as taught) was crap. These are religions – you come to belief or you do not.