By Azadeh Mirbod
Daily Bruin Contributor
Having a diversity requirement won’t directly affect graduate students, but they work closely with faculty and can influence them to add the requirement to the list of general education classes, Undergraduate Students Association Council members say.
But when USAC representatives brought the requirement issue to the Graduate Students Association Forum on Wednesday, hoping to earn favor, the forum made no motion to call for action.
Because USAC representatives did not have enough time during the meeting to fully explain the diversity requirement, GSA Forum members had questions left unanswered, and thus, no one made a motion to take action.
“More time and discussion of the topic is needed in order for GSA to raise a motion and address the issue in a resolution,” said GSA vice president-internal Dorothy Kim.
“This is an important topic, and maybe it will be brought up again in the January meeting,” she said.
USAC wanted to present to GSA before next Wednesday – the deadline for the faculty to vote on GE changes – so that graduate students could talk to faculty about revising the GE requirement list.
The current proposal for the GE requirement list does not include a diversity requirement, but amendments can be made and voted on by committees in the Academic Senate.
For the Academic Senate GE Governance Committee to consider a diversity requirement, faculty members must vote down the current proposal on the ballot and call for changes to the GE requirement list.
Forum members asked Karren Lane and USAC Academic Affairs Commissioner Bryant Tan how the new requirement would be funded and taught under a limited budget and an increasing number of undergraduate students.
The requirement would not add new classes, but it can be fulfilled by a range of classes already being offered, Lane said.
“It seems like our questions were helpful for (USAC) to clarify some points and make them think of issues that they didn’t think to address. Hopefully this will help them to be organized in presenting their proposal,” Kim said.
A diversity requirement would educate students on the social constructions of race, class, gender, religion and sexuality that exist in institutions, Lane said.
UCLA is the only campus in the UC system without a diversity requirement.
“The GE requirements haven’t changed for the last 16 years, and students were not part of changing them in the first place,” said USAC External Vice President Evan Okamura.