Adult Supervision from UC Prez - Part 2

UC prez Napolitano gave an interview to a reporter from California Today (NY Times supplement) concerning her intervention in UC campus admissions procedures. As noted yesterday, she stepped in with new procedures after UCLA and UC-Berkeley were involved in the recent admissions scandal.* See below:

Jill Cowan (NY Times): First, can you tell me more about why the university decided to undertake these changes?

Janet Napolitano: Just by way of background, the university gets around 220,000 applications every year. And when the Varsity Blues indictment came down, one of the cases alleged involved the soccer coach at U.C.L.A.

In looking at that, I asked our chief audit officer to survey and do a process review of where we were, what improvements could be made to our system to bolster our defenses against others who may try to game the system.

What kind of responsibility do you think the University of California or an individual campus has to stop that kind of fraud? Do you think the U.C. has any culpability in the case?

Well, I’m not sure I would describe it as culpability, but more that were there process improvements that we could make to minimize the risk of another instance arising that was similar to what happened at U.C.L.A. and beyond that particular instance.

Do you think any of the specific changes would have prevented the case that allegedly involved the U.C.L.A. men’s soccer coach, Jorge Salcedo?

I think the requirement in the case of special admissions, which would cover athletics, that there be two-step verification of the student’s eligibility and qualifications would have been very helpful.

These fixes are mostly process related. I’m wondering if you could speak a little bit about how the U.C. is addressing broader inequalities in education.

I think one of the reasons that the case struck such a nerve is because it really led to the notion that the products of privilege get special rules and special benefits.

We’re a public university and in a way, we’re a public trust. We want to make sure that we are accessible, that we’re affordable, that we’re excellent.

We actually have a student body that is socioeconomically diverse. For example, California resident undergraduates from families that make less than $80,000 a year pay no tuition or fees at the university. What that means is that 52 percent of our undergrads graduate with no student loans.
So on the one hand, we have policies that mitigate against the undue effect of privilege and on the other hand we have policies that foster accessibility and affordability.

Is there anything you’d say to students who are applying to the U.C.?

I would say to students that we hold ourselves to a very high standard, that we are taking proactive steps to strengthen and protect the integrity of the admissions process and that they will be evaluated on their merits.

Source: https://static.nytimes.com/email-content/CA_14531.html
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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2019/06/adult-supervision-from-uc-prez.html