Administrative responsibility for most aspects of staff diversity falls to the line manager assisted by the Affirmative Action Office, which is responsible for non-discrimination and affirmative action programs and policies for staff and faculty. Administrative committees also concerned with diversity issues include the Chancellor's Task Force on Diversity, the Committee on the Status of Women, the Committee on Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Community Concerns, the Americans with Disabilities Advisory Committee, the Committee on Disability Services, the Sexual Harassment Education Committee, and the Human Resources Advisory Committee. Staff organizations concerned with diversity include the Chicano/Latino Staff Caucus, the African American Staff Caucus, the Asian/Pacific Islander Staff, the Coalition of Asian and Pacific Island Employees, and Women in Management.
As of October 31, 1992, UCSC's career (permanent) staff was 60.8 percent female and 22.6 percent members of ethnic minority groups included in federal affirmative action guidelines.
Table D.9 shows that UCSC is much more diverse at lower staff ranks than in management, both for women and ethnic minorities, and the absolute number of staff who are members of ethnic minority groups is still small.
In comparison with the UC system as a whole, Table D.10 shows UCSC's staff is considerably less ethnically diverse. About 23 percent of UCSC's career staff are members of ethnic minority groups, compared to 39 percent for UC as a whole. Most of the difference is in the lowest level jobs: the Staff Personnel Program at UCSC is 24 percent minority, compared to 44 percent minority systemwide. In management positions, UCSC is at least as ethnically diverse as UC as a whole. Executive positions at UCSC have recently been as high as 23 percent minority (3 of 13 executives), compared to 13 percent systemwide, and Management positions at UCSC are 19 percent minority, compared to 18 percent systemwide.
Women are well represented in staff (64 percent) and administrative/professional (59 percent) positions at UCSC (although still less than the UC average), but in management positions, UCSC has only 32 percent women compared to 43 percent women systemwide. Our executives are currently 23 percent women (26.5 percent systemwide), but again the numbers are very small.
A more meaningful analysis is UCSC's affirmative action goal achievement, which compares the gender and ethnic composition of staff in specific groups of jobs to the applicant pool in the relevant recruiting area. UCSC has met goals in only four of twenty job groups: Student services (higher levels), staff management and analysis (higher levels), clerical/administrative (lower levels), and cleaning/food services. UCSC is far from meeting its goals in computer programming and operations for both women and minorities, and in research/scientific positions the campus has made little recent progress in increasing the disproportionately small numbers of minorities. Since UCSC's current goals are still based on 1980 census estimates of availability, it is reasonable to expect that the 1990 census data will result in higher goals. Analyses of the most recent year's personnel actions indicate that the campus is hiring women and minorities at rates that equal or exceed availability, but the resulting change in the UCSC workforce is still lagging behind demographic changes in the state.
UCSC has no reliable estimates of the number of staff who have disabilities; thirteen staff members have voluntarily self-identified as having a disability, but the Affirmative Action Office considers that number to be an underestimate. There are also no systematic statistics on the number of people with disabilities who are available for hire, but representatives of Santa Cruz community organizations concerned with disability issues believe that people with disabilities are underrepresented among UCSC staff.
UCSC has never done a survey of staff sexual orientation, so we have no estimates of the number of staff who are gay, lesbian, or bisexual. The campus has no goals for sexual orientation.
UCSC's Director of Affirmative Action reports that, while there have long been widespread expressions of support for staff diversity as a general concept, support for proactive efforts to increase diversity, such as affirmative action goals, is less wholehearted. She feels that, as is true for the country as a whole, UCSC has passed through a period of several years in which resistance to affirmative action became more acceptable. Although UCSC has little that could be termed active hostility (and a review by the Office for Civil Rights found that the campus handled incidents of racial disharmony quite well), there remains at UCSC a significant uncertainty, expressed openly during some workshops on diversity, about whether affirmative action does more harm or good. Some comments from staff caucuses on an earlier version of this report indicated stronger opinions: that the support for affirmative action is "all talk but no action"; that many people misunderstand affirmative action to require quotas; that the anti-politically correct movement is a guise for opposition to diversity; that affirmative action progress at all but the lowest levels of the staff is "abysmal"; that the Affirmative Action Office does not have any power and will, when worse comes to worst, "side with the institution."
Advocates of affirmative action are heartened by the Chancellor's published statements in support of diversity at a time of campus budget reductions. However, both Staff and Student Affirmative Action offices are concerned that resentment of the special treatment afforded affirmative action may increase as other areas are cut more severely. Until the recent restoration of the staff development program, affirmative action programs aimed at women and minority staff produced some resentment on the part of those who were not beneficiaries. It has also been increasingly difficult for the campus to make affirmative action progress in hiring or promotions at a time when there are so few recruitments and so little programmatic attention to staff career development.
During the past few years, three ethnic minority staff organizations have been organized and have held retreats, supported by funding from the Chancellor. All have continuing concerns about low numbers on campus; all feel the need for more successful staff development efforts; all have experienced incidents of insensitivity on campus.
The African-American Charette in 1990 expressed concerns about racial insensitivity, the lack of systematic efforts to increase recruitment and retention, lack of managerial accountability for affirmative action progress, the low numbers of African-American staff on campus, especially in administrative positions, and the isolation resulting from such small numbers. At present, the
African-American staff group is inactive as a formal organization, and there is increasing concern in the small community about the number of African-American men who have left the staff, especially at higher levels.
The Chicano/Latino Staff Caucus issued a report of the retreat and its recommendations, to which the Chancellor responded with a number of specific actions and which he conveyed to senior administrators for further action. The caucus continues to be concerned about how many Chicano/Latinos at high levels have left the campus in recent years (for a variety of reasons) without equal numbers of replacements. Ten years ago, there was a powerful Chicano/Latino presence in both academic and administrative circles that seems to have diminished. The fact that the large increases in Chicano/Latino population in the state have not been reflected in UCSC's administration is cited as a source of increasing frustration and resentment.
The Asian/Pacific Islander (API) staff group held a retreat during 1992 which was evaluated as a very positive community-building experience by most participants. While the group acknowledged the sensitivity to and recognition of the API community on the part of Chancellor Pister, it also noted a lack of sensitivity to its concerns or commitment from management to its members' career progress in the university. The group recommended that management be further educated and held accountable for progress toward a more diverse campus; that management and work styles other than Anglo-Euro styles be recognized and valued; that the campus give a higher priority to developing and advancing staff; and that API concerns be more influential in policy and decision-making. While some API staff members are encouraged by recent progress, others are still angry about incidents such as the "Asian Food Affair" in 1988 and cynical about campus commitment to affirmative action.
Staff women disagree about the campus climate; perceptions vary greatly by location and depth of feminist consciousness, as well as by ethnicity. In male-dominated units on campus, there are still occasional incidents of verbal hostility reported to the Affirmative Action Office. Most organized staff women's groups are numerically dominated by white women who vary in their understanding of how life can be different for women of color, although a significant action was that Women in Management devoted a year's programming to diversity issues for its members. There is an acute awareness that women do not seem to get promoted into management ranks very often, and consternation that UCSC lags behind other UCs in management affirmative action for women.
Since 1985, when the campus sexual harassment policy was implemented, UCSC's Sexual Harassment Prevention Program has made considerable progress in educating the campus about policies and procedures against sexual harassment, and UCSC now has what is considered by some to be a model program. Funding and administrative support have been strong. In July 1993, despite the budget crisis, the Chancellor appointed a new full-time staff position solely devoted to sexual harassment complaint resolution and other Title IX issues, which had been handled by staff with other full-time duties.
UCSC has succeeded in informally resolving a number of sexual harassment complaints. Still, cases resulting in disciplinary action are sometimes controversial and hotly contested. Reports of sexual harassment on campus have increased substantially over the review period, perhaps in part due to increased national and campus publicity about sexual harassment. A 1992-93 task force has drafted a new policy on sexual harassment that is currently under review.
The climate for gay, lesbian, and bisexual staff on campus appears to be more positive than on most college campuses. UCSC has an active Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Community Concerns Committee (GLBCC) and a critical mass of staff members who are open about their sexuality. However, there are still some heterosexual staff members who are uncomfortable with openly gay/lesbian coworkers, and there are occasional incidents of homophobic remarks reported to the Affirmative Action Office, which are responded to with education. A recent GLBCC-initiated boycott of United Way donations to the Boy Scouts brought a few angry letters to the committee. The Chancellor has extended some minor campus benefits to domestic partners of staff, but those major benefits under systemwide control are still not available to unmarried partners. There is recent support at the systemwide level for extending benefits to domestic partners.
The climate for diversity with regard to disability is in the midst of great change with the implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), described below.
The campus took the occasion of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to conduct a thorough self-study that included a review of employment procedures and a survey of staff with disabilities, as well as campuswide staff education. During 1992, Human Resources offered workshops for all campus supervisors on the Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as education on employee rights under the ADA. The staff survey revealed few problems related to their disabilities, most having to do with physical barriers. The campus ADA self-evaluation asked that each unit consider potential barriers to people with disabilities (including members of the community) and institutionalize accommodations. Response was generally quite positive, but some campus units are concerned about whether and how to accommodate controversial disabilities such as multiple chemical sensitivities, and some concern has been voiced about the cost of workplace accommodations during the budget crisis. Although efforts to implement the ADA fully have increased campus consciousness, we have far to go to create full access for people with disabilities, and UCSC's reputation in the Santa Cruz disabled community is in need of improvement.
Women in Management is an active sponsor of programs to support staff women in management positions. Two years ago, the group sponsored a year of programming focused on diversity issues. UCSC's Affirmative Action Office and Women in Management are currently collaborating on a proposal for a "glass ceiling" study focusing on women in management. An informal group of staff women in non-management positions has been organizing an annual Women at Work Retreat, with two days of workshops and meetings focused on career development for staff women.
In 1991, the Affirmative Action Office developed (and has since been delivering) a series of workshops on diversity, including Multicultural Awareness, Cross-cultural Communication, Gender and Power, Gender and Communication, Sexual Orientation for Heterosexuals, Ethnic and Gender Dynamics in Conflict, Accommodating Disability, the Staff Affirmative Action Plan, and Sexual Harassment. During the past two years, the Affirmative Action Office has added a workshop on "Controversies in Affirmative Action," in which staff members are invited to have frank discussions of the positive and negative aspects of affirmative action. After such discussions, which include clarification of UCSC's policy (a fairly conservative one, focused on areas in which there is evidence that women or minority staff members are underrepresented), staff seems better able to support a model of affirmative action that preserves principles of fairness. Such training has been offered in only a few units, however, and problem areas remain.
Areas of the campus that are actively committed to affirmative action, e.g., the Student Services Division, succeed in recruiting and selecting well-qualified women and minority staff, but they also recruit in fields in which women and minorities are better represented. In the past year, two academic divisions, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences, have created Affirmative Action Committees to concentrate on both numbers and climate in the division. The Natural Sciences Affirmative Action Committee has recently sponsored training in multicultural issues for key divisional staff and has prepared a detailed analysis of problem areas in the division. The Social Sciences Division has not made as much progress. McHenry Library has had an active committee for several years that sponsors multicultural education for library staff. The Humanities and Arts Divisions, Business and Administrative Services, and the Chancellor's units have no affirmative action committees at present. Campus Facilities has recently implemented an English as a Second Language class, delivered by staff volunteers, for custodial staff.
Last year, Human Resources developed a workshop for units with problematic affirmative action records that focuses on how to evaluate applicants fairly; this workshop is now offered monthly and by request. Human Resources has proposed a program of Focused Recruitments, under which Principal Officers would designate key recruitments. Units would be given assistance in developing a recruitment plan, training search committees, and conducting an affirmative action search. The current budget crisis and severely curtailed hiring have made it difficult to make progress with any affirmative action recruiting. As long as hiring is so restricted, affirmative action efforts will have to focus on developing and retaining the diversity we have. Yet, until the staff development program was reinstituted this year, a small Staff Affirmative Action Scholarship Program was the only avenue for formal staff development for women and minorities.
In 1992, the Chancellor sponsored Staff Diversity Achievement Awards to campus people who made successful efforts to further staff diversity. In many public statements and in meetings with principal officers, he has expressed his support for staff affirmative action. But as the campus faces the threat of continued staff layoffs, there is concern that the layoffs may disproportionately affect staff of color, who are more likely to be recently hired and often hold positions that are more at risk.
Overall, UCSC seems to have a core of staff support for diversity, pockets of resistance and resentment, strong administrative support at the highest levels, and inadequate resources to influence the rate of change with financial incentives.