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In its final stages of becoming an official policy, the diversity requirement proposal was rejected as faculty members of the UCLA College voted against it.

Voter turnout was “somewhat low” as only 249 faculty members voted out of 1,262 eligible voters, said Robin Garrell, chairwoman of the Faculty Executive Committee of the College. The decision of the faculty wide vote was confirmed Dec. 19.

Already existing at the other eight University of California undergraduate campuses, the proposal at UCLA called for students to take one course – as part of their existing general education requirements – in any of the three foundation areas that address issues within diversity.

But faculty members of the College were not completely pleased by the proposal as only 108 members voted in favor of the requirement while 141 opposed.

Student leaders, who have been working in collaboration with faculty for several years now to implement such a requirement, were upset.

“I’m disappointed in the fact that only 249 faculty voted and other faculty members were lobbying against it,” said Eligio Martinez, Academic Affairs commissioner for the Undergraduate Students Association Council.

Baffled as to why the requirement – now in its 17th year of activits trying to get it implemented – did not pass the College vote, Martinez expressed his dissatisfaction.

“It just doesn’t make sense," he said. “It comes down to what the faculty considers a valuable education, (and) they don’t think diversity requirement is important.”

Garrell said some faculty members had several concerns with the current proposal.

Examples of these concerns stem from the belief that the existing GE curriculum encompasses a large collection of diversity-related courses which students already take, Garrell said. Other faculty believe the proposal is overly broad and vague in its current state, Garrell also said.

Student leaders in conjunction with Professor Raymond Knapp, head of the GE governance committee, plan to submit a revised proposal that they hope to be put to a vote at the end of winter quarter, and will strive to have some form of a diversity requirement implemented by fall 2005, Martinez said.

The faculty members of the School of Arts and Architecture and the School of Theatre, Film and Television have yet to vote for the implementation of the requirement in their schools.

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