Regents to Vote on Raising Admissions Standards

Dozens of minority advocates and students will urge the UC Board of Regents at tomorrow's meeting to vote against raising the GPA bar for UC admissions-a plan opponents fear will damage minority enrollment.

UC's highest governing body will decide whether to raise the minimum GPA for eligibility to UC from 2.8 to 3.0 for the freshmen class of 2007.

The new requirements, endorsed by faculty leaders, are meant to pare down the number of students qualified to enroll at a UC campus to the state's top 12.5 percent of high school seniors-a target that has existed for more than 40 years.

A state report earlier this spring from the California Post-Secondary Education Commission revealed that UC was accepting as many as 14.4 percent of the state's top high school seniors.

The board originally planned to vote on the change in July, but the item was tabled after students raised concerns that it was rushed through without studying possible consequences for minority enrollment.

Under the more stringent GPA requirements, the percentage of black high school students eligible for UC would fall by 25 percent, according to the UC Office of the President.

"The UC students definitely feel that any changes to eligibility at this time is an attack to diversity," said Jennifer Lilla, president of the University of California Student Association.

Some regents, including Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and California State Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, have added that UC should not limit its applicant pool to the longstanding 12.5 percent target.

"It's an attack to hardworking California students that just happen to be doing well, and it seems like a punishment," Lilla said. "I would love really resisting the master plan."

Several opponents also say the data used for tomorrow's vote is faulty.

Although the state usually bases its findings on transcripts from all California public high schools, the 2003 study was conducted after a 24-member reduction to the commission staff last year, said Murray Haberman, CPEC executive director.

He said the lack of time and staff limitations forced researchers to base their results on a sample of 48 schools that could provide transcripts electronically, instead of on data from all California public high schools.

Haberman defended the study, saying he "has full confidence that the sample is representative of what is going on around the state," and that the data was validated by UC statisticians.

CPEC is preparing a more comprehensive version of the study based on data from all California high schools for the graduating class of 2001.

The new data could prompt the regents to stall the vote once more, Haberman said.

Under pressure from the state Legislature, CPEC also analyzed the impacts of different formulas that could be used to tighten requirements instead of raising only the minimum GPA, Haberman said.

He said the effect on underrepresented minority admissions would be less dramatic if only GPA was

adjusted.

Under other scenarios, black student eligibility rates could drop by as much as 52 percent, Haberman said.

A second hot item on tomorrow's agenda is a discussion about the fate of UC's six-decade stewardship of three national laboratories-Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National laboratories.

All three labs are up for contract renewal next year and other universities and private contractors are vying for their management. Each lab bid will cost UC between $3 and $5 million.

UC has already expressed interest in pursuing a bid for Lawrence Berkeley and are moving forward as if they will compete for Los Alamos and Livermore. However, bidding for both weapons labs is still up for debate.

After a string of security and safety breaches, including one that shut down its operations entirely, the Los Alamos lab has drawn negative publicity to the university's management.

However, several of UC's top administrators and faculty leaders say the university must compete.

The UC President's Council on the National Laboratories will present a recommendation today that UC maintain control of the labs for "the best interest of the nation."

In May, UC faculty voted overwhelmingly in favor of keeping control over the research laboratories despite pronounced concerns about the lab's ties to the nation's nuclear weapons programs.

But a few community and student groups argue that a public university should not be involved in nuclear weapons research.

"The lab needs leadership that's going to lead it in the direction of demilitarization and democratization," said Chelsea Collonge, a UC Berkeley junior on The Coalition to Demilitarize the University of California. "Weapons research violates international law."

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