The campus has been able to attract a relatively high percentage of minority graduate students. In evaluating graduate student diversity, this section compares: (1) UCSC's graduate student composition to that of UC graduate students as a whole, and to graduate students at individual UC campuses (although informative in a relative sense, this neglects the fact that the different campuses sponsor different mixes of graduate programs); (2) UCSC's graduate student composition to that of UC bachelor's degree recipients as a stand-in for potentially eligible students (which neglects the fact that not all graduating students are eligible for graduate school).
Diversity among the graduate student population is much more difficult to evaluate than for undergraduates, faculty, or staff. First, there are only a few individuals or offices on the Santa Cruz campus who have graduate students from minority or underrepresented groups as a primary concern. The most comprehensive source of information on this subject is the Division of Graduate Studies and Research. Second, it is problematic to establish the appropriate comparison pools for defining goals or evaluating underrepresentation. Graduate students at UCSC, as is typical of most public research universities, are recruited on a nationwide basis, and there are no defined systemwide or campuswide recruitment goals. Third, issues of diversity among graduate students, and graduate student education in general, have received much less attention than comparable concerns for undergraduates on this campus.
In the University of California as a whole in the fall of 1991, 14 percent of graduate students came from the SAA (Student Affirmative Action) categories of African-American, American Indian, Chicano, Latino, and Filipino students. UCSC's fall 1991 graduate student enrollment included 15.1 percent from these categories. This was the highest percent for total graduate enrollments in the UC system. In 1992 UCSC continued to lead the system with 16.5 percent SAA graduate enrollments (Table D.7).
UCSC has a lower proportion of Asian-American graduate students than other UC campuses or UC as a whole. As a consequence, white students accounted for a larger proportion (78.4 percent) of graduate student enrollment at UCSC than for UC as a whole (73.4 percent). A similar picture emerges when one compares UCSC graduate student diversity with that of recipients of UC bachelor's degrees. In 1991, the percentages of individuals at both levels falling into SAA categories were almost exactly equal. However, only 5.9 percent of UCSC graduate students were Asian American, as opposed to 16.4 percent of UC bachelor's degree holders.
In 1992, 46.1 percent of UCSC graduate students were women, as opposed to 53.9 percent of UC bachelor's recipients. Most striking is the clear underrepresentation of women in the Natural Sciences Division relative to UC bachelor's recipients; as of the fall of 1992 only 30 percent of the graduate students in this division at UCSC were women. In all other divisions women are a majority of the graduate students: 57.9 percent in Arts, 60.5 percent in Social Sciences, and 65.3 percent in Humanities.
An analysis of diversity among UCSC graduate students by both gender and ethnicity reveals that women are more heavily represented among ethnic minority groups than among whites. While women were 47.1 percent of white graduate students in 1992, they were 52.8 percent of Asian Americans and 56.5 percent of SAA graduate students. This was true of all divisions with the striking exception of Natural Sciences, where the white graduate student population was the most balanced in terms of gender (35.0 percent female vs 28.1 percent among Asian Americans and 22.0 percent among SAA graduate students). In contrast, the sole SAA and Asian-American graduate students in the Arts Division were both women, and 63.8 percent of SAA graduate students in Social Sciences (81.6 percent in Humanities) were women. The shortage of minority graduate students thus appears particularly acute among women in Natural Sciences, and among men in the other divisions.
Major efforts to recruit ethnic minority graduate students to UCSC have been made by the campus' Graduate Division. This office currently receives funds from the UC Office of the President for recruitment and uses them primarily to enable UCSC representatives to attend career fairs at other universities and meetings of minority professionals like the NAACP Scholarship Fund, the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science, and the National Hispanic Scholarship Fund. The office also funds visits to UCSC by prospective minority graduate students each year. Additional recruitment of minority graduate students is done by individual boards or professors. Information on these efforts is not compiled centrally and thus cannot be readily presented.
Retention and graduation rates have not been evaluated on a regular basis for graduate students. However, a November 1992 study by the Division of Graduate Studies and Research of the success rates of students entering eleven UCSC doctoral programs in 1980-82 revealed that, by 1992, 49.8 percent of white students had completed their degrees versus 33.3 percent of minority students.
The above-mentioned study did not break down success rates of UCSC doctoral students by gender, and in general there seems to be little information on the recruitment and retention of female graduate students at UCSC.
Fellowships and grants for graduate students are in relatively short supply in the UC system compared to other major universities in America, and this applies to such aid for minority students as well. We have no equivalent to the Big Ten's Committee on Institutional Cooperation Program, for example, which gives four years of full support to qualified minority students. Given the absence of statistics comparing the support of minority graduate students at UCSC with that at other UC campuses, a reliable systemwide comparison is not feasible at this point. On the other hand, UCSC does support a very large number of its graduate students with teaching assistantships. The average graduate student here manages to pay for most of his or her education through university funds, combining fellowship and grant support during the first one or two years of study with teaching assistantships thereafter.
Those fellowship programs that do exist for minority graduate students at UCSC are administered through the Graduate Division. The Graduate Division has noted that at present all of UCSC's minority graduate students receive university support, outside grants, or loans. The Office of the President of the University of California currently funds several programs specifically targeting minority graduate students. These include the graduate mentorship program, the research assistantship/mentorship program, and the dissertation-year fellowship program. In 1991-92 these three programs supported eighteen graduate students at UCSC, or roughly 18 percent of the minority graduate students on campus.
In addition, in 1991-92 twenty-three graduate students held fellowships funded by outside agencies seeking to increase diversity in American universities: eight students held Ford Foundation minority predoctoral and dissertation fellowships, five held National Science Foundation minority graduate fellowships, eight held Patricia Roberts Harris fellowships, and two held awards from the National Physical Science Consortium. All in all, UCSC minority graduate students have done quite well in attracting outside funding, which testifies to the high quality of this group. However, most minority graduate students at UCSC continue to rely on the same sources of financial support, primarily teaching assistantships, as other graduate students here. Given projected increases in graduate programs and some possibility of decreases in the number of TAships at UCSC due to budgetary constraints, efforts to maintain the present high availability of financial support for minority graduate students will be needed, especially if this population continues to grow.
Some of the fellowships listed above, such as the Dissertation-Year Program, the Patricia Roberts Harris Program, and the National Physical Science Consortium, are also available to non-minority women in the natural sciences. In 1991-92 two non-minority women held such fellowships. The amount of financial aid specifically targeted to women remains small, however. No university or universitywide programs exist at this point that emphasize rectifying the underrepresentation of women in the natural sciences by funding more women graduate students in those fields of study.
The qualitative aspects of diversity among graduate students at UCSC remains extremely difficult to assess with precision. No surveys exist of graduate student feelings about relations between different groups on campus. The discussion presented below is based on several meetings held with members of different groups of UCSC graduate students during the winter and spring of 1993. It makes no claim to being representative or scientifically accurate, but it does suggest the range of graduate students' perceptions concerning diversity issues.
Graduate students of color expressed a number of preoccupations. High on the list are concerns about relations with faculty members in their boards of study, and feelings of isolation on campus. One African-American student said he was told by a professor that blacks were lazy and didn't want to work. Others emphasized the need for more faculty of color, both for creating a more supportive atmosphere and for sponsoring a more diverse curriculum. Minority graduate students in one board asserted that the content of courses taught in their board did not reflect diversity issues, though the field would have made it appropriate. Students also noted the paucity of graduate student organizations on campus and in general indicated a desire for greater contacts among graduate students of color.
Other areas of concern included problems of retention of minority graduate students, a sense that undergraduate students tend to challenge minority TAs more, and the perceived "lily white" character of the UCSC community. However, several students also expressed satisfaction with their experience at UCSC, both in general and in comparison to other schools they have attended. It should be noted that many of the concerns expressed are shared by all graduate students, not just those of color. Moreover, the experiences of minority graduate students differ widely across campus. Finally, several students felt that the current fiscal crisis of the university posed a threat to graduate student diversity at UCSC.
Sexual harassment by professors seems to be a major area of concern for women graduate students at UCSC. The Director of the Feminist Studies Focused Research Activity has indicated that this issue seems to keep arising and that many students seem unsure as to how to deal with the problem. Some other problems indicated by women graduate students included a sense of isolation at UCSC and the perceived lack of women faculty. Some felt that many male faculty tend to favor male graduate students, excluding women from established "old boy" networks. Others also expressed the concern that UCSC, while trying to attract a more diverse graduate population, has failed to change institutionally in ways that would make that new population feel more at home. One student pointed to the lack of adequate child care resources on campus as a problem. She noted that the current child care center is undergoing budgetary pressure. It was also asserted that financial aid does not sufficiently take the family needs of graduate students into account. In general, some students felt that the model of a graduate student at UCSC was still a single male.
Women graduate students also expressed concern about financial aid resources in general as well as fears of ghettoization in "women's" fields. As teaching assistants, they felt they received less respect from male undergraduates than did male TAs. Some argued that misogynistic language appeared at times in student evaluations of female TAs.
There is very little information available about lesbian and gay graduate students at UCSC. In part for legal reasons and due to the difficulty of defining the categories, we do not and cannot know how many attend this university. The lesbian and gay students we contacted felt comfortable at UCSC, indicating that there was little blatant discrimination and a large, supportive lesbian community in Santa Cruz. One student noted that while there were few gay students in Natural Sciences, there was also little overt homophobia. However, they expressed concern that issues of sexual orientation and difference were not sufficiently addressed in institutional discussions of diversity in teaching and learning environments. More specifically, gay graduate students condemned their exclusion from family student housing and the lack of health insurance coverage for partners. They also pointed to undergraduate homophobia as a problem for teaching assistants, noting many undergraduates assume that any TA who confronts homophobic behavior is gay.
In summary, although individuals cite specific instances, overt discrimination against graduate students or intergroup conflict does not appear to be a major problem at UCSC. None of the various students contacted cited bigotry on the part of other graduate students as a problem. It is worth noting that many of the concerns cited by the targeted students, such as relations with faculty and financial aid, are shared by graduate students as a whole, though they may be particularly acute for women and ethnic minority graduate students. Both groups emphasized their view that a more diverse faculty is key to changing the climate at UCSC for the better and that UCSC needs to be more attentive to the specific challenges involved in both attracting and retaining a diverse graduate student population.
Recruitment efforts for SAA students (African-American, American Indian, Chicano and Latino) have been very successful relative to the UC system as a whole. For the past two years, UCSC has led the system in the percentage of these underrepresented groups for both new graduate students and total graduate enrollments. The campus has been able to provide financial support for minority graduate students and is aggressively pursuing continued support through the submission of grants. These students have also received a high level of outside funding. Little information has been gathered on campus climate, nor has there been systematic examination of recruitment strategies or retention and graduation rates; these warrant more attention.