Role Created To Bolster Campus Equity

Since the beginning of his tenure as UC Berkeley chancellor, Robert Birgeneau has spoken about strengthening the diversity of the campus community.

Birgeneau announced the establishment of a new senior position Wednesday morning as part of his continued efforts to improve acceptance within the student body, staff and faculty.

The position of vice chancellor of equity and inclusion was created after consulting with a task force of students, staff and faculty members for a year, Birgeneau said.

The discussions concluded that a new organizational structure was needed to improve the campus experience and representation of ethnic and religious minorities, students with disabilities and people from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

"I'm a strong believer personally that it's important that every person feel that this is a place where they belong and they are respected for their individuality," Birgeneau said. "They aren't required to be homogenous. We need to prize our diversity and learn from it."

The new administrator will join the other vice chancellors in the university's administrative structure and will oversee a large staff working with various campus departments.

Unlike similar appointees at other universities, the vice chancellor will have influence at university cabinet meetings and will work on more inclusive hiring searches, outreach and mentoring, Birgeneau said.

"This person will have a large organization under them and will act with authority on these matters," he said.

An advisory committee chaired by the chancellor will begin a national search after Labor Day to fill the unique position, Birgeneau said.

An expected salary was not announced at the press briefing, but vice chancellor positions at other UC campuses range anywhere from $180,000 to $300,000, according to systemwide figures from the office of UC President Robert Dynes.

The chancellor said that there was no systematic discrimination that prompted the new position, but that the number of underrepresented minority employees dwindles at higher levels of administration and faculty.

At the same time, the number of underrepresented minority students in the incoming undergraduate freshman class has "crept up slowly but surely," increasing from 12 percent to 16 percent, he said.

"One of the things that I'd like to emphasize is that equity and inclusion are more than just numbers," Birgeneau said. "It's about the experience of people from diverse backgrounds here at Berkeley, whether they're students, staff or faculty."

In addition to announcing the new position, Birgeneau said the university had assigned six full-time employees to work as part of the Berkeley Diversity Research Initiative. The initiative, established in May 2005, studies racial and ethnic diversity and the ways in which multicultural societies flourish.

"It's appropriate that a California university should play a leadership role in scholarship of multiculturalism. (California) leads as a living laboratory for multicultural societies in which we have people from extraordinarily diverse backgrounds and cultures and religions interacting with each other," Birgeneau said.

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