At a conference entitled "Promoting Diversity in Times of Adversity" held Friday and Saturday in Los Angeles, California State University faculty and staff dedicated themselves to organizing campuswide efforts aimed at promoting affirmative action. Referring to the proposed California Civil Rights Initiative, Pedro Noguera, an education professor at UC Berkeley, said university campuses are at the center of the affirmative action controversy.
He said the only way to win the "war on affirmative action" is for teachers and students to work together to promote diversity in higher education.
The proposed initiative, which requires 600,000 signatures to get on the state ballot, would prohibit the use of preferential treatment based on race or gender.
The most important role for students, Noguera said, is to challenge faculty to achieve diversity in their curriculums. He said universities should strive to be less Eurocentric in courses such as English and philosophy, and they should include more discussions on works by people of color and gays and lesbians.
Like Noguera, Dawn Outen, a junior high school teacher who led one of the seminars, believes offering students a multicultural education is the first step in teaching them to appreciate diversity.
"If you want to make a change you got to change the curriculum," she said. "If you don't do it in the classroom, it's not going to happen."
Many participants agreed increasing diversity in the universities would get more students to stand up for affirmative action -- however, they said a tighter budget and decreasing resources within the CSU system are making it a difficult task.
"Minority issues are considered special issues and not mainstream issues. When the budget gets cut, programs dealing with these issues get cut," said Susan Bicknell, dean of graduate studies at CSU Humboldt, who was part of a panel discussion on the future of affirmative action.
As universities cut back on the number of staff and faculty, women and people of color are at a greater risk of losing their jobs, Bicknell said.
The problem of minority retention rates among universities was addressed in a seminar led by Ash Niampally of CSU Long Beach. According to a survey he conducted at 118 public universities nationwide, the number of ethnic minorities on faculty during the past 15 years has increased, while the tenure rates for minority faculty have dropped, he said.
He later cited a report, "Minorities in Higher Education," done from 1981 to 1991, which said the overall tenure rate among minority faculty in public universities nationwide fell from 61 percent to 59 percent.
A 1993 chancellor's report on the CSU system states that from 1989 to 1992 every CSU campus increased the proportion of minority representation in its faculty. At SF State during this time, 40 percent of tenure-track hires were minorities.
The goal of universities, Naimpally said, should be to bring the current average tenure rate for minorities and women, which is 60 percent, up to the 72 percent tenure rate of white men.
He believes the main reason for the low tenure rate is because minorities often feel isolated from their colleagues and can lack support.
Agreeing with Naimpally, Nathan Smith, chair of the California Faculty Association Affirmative Action Committee, said, "A person gets hired but doesn't get tenured, partly because he doesn't get support from his colleagues. Also a person feels uncomfortable, so he leaves or he transfers to another institution for more pay." Niampally pointed out the retention rates of minority students in universities has not improved because, he said. they might also feel isolated from the rest of the student body. The larger the school, the more likely this is to occur, he said.
Naimpally explained the benefits of mentor programs for both teachers and students in overcoming this barrier. By having role models of the same culture or ethnicity, teachers and students can feel like they have someone who understands them and who they can trust for support, he said.
He also praised the CSU's Educational Opportunity Program, which he said has helped recruit and retain many minority students.
The proportion of minority students at SF State has increased over the last two years, according to a report issued by the campus EOP program. Fifty-five percent of first-time freshman in 1994 were from ethnically underrepresented groups, the report said.
Staff and faculty from SF State who attended the California Faculty Association-sponsored conference included Joe Torres, director of affirmative action, Ed Apodaca, vice president of enrollment services, and Rick Gutierrez, CFA chapter president.
If people continue to fight for affirmative action, Niampally believes people of color will be equally represented among university faculty and students within 10 to 15 years.
But Bicknell believes it will take longer.
"(Affirmative action) is the most important issue of higher education for the next three decades at least," she said. "We'll need affirmative action until minorities are the majorities."