“Academic Personnel and Programs develops, implements and manages policies and procedures pertaining to the employment relationship between an academic appointee and the University of California. These policies and procedures are issued by the Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs and published in the Academic Personnel Manual (APM).”

Retrieved from University of California Office of the President.

“The 2005 amendments to the UC Academic Personnel Policies (APM) 210, 240, and 245 set forth a model for evaluating faculty and academic administrators on their contributions to diversity and equal opportunity in higher education” ( Report of the UC President’s Task Force on Faculty Diversity;p. v ).

The Task Force observed that resources and rewards are essential to influence faculty and departmental behavior and demonstrate the University’s commitment to diversity and equal opportunity. The Task Force recommends:

• that each campus, in consultation with the Academic Senate, examine the FTE allocation process, at both the institutional and departmental level, so it becomes more effective at addressing faculty diversity
• that each campus consider a wide variety of resource allocation practices and incentives to support diversity, such as incentives that will encourage research, hiring and retention efforts, along with graduate postdoctoral fellowships focused on diversity
• that each campus make a commitment to visible programs, such as faculty recognition awards, that will advance the academic mission of diversity and inclusiveness
• that each campus, in consultation with the Academic Senate, explore how faculty will be rewarded in their advancement for research, teaching and service that promote diversity and equal opportunity in accordance with the newly revised APM 210 governing faculty appointment and promotion.

(Report of the UC President’s Task Force on Faculty Diversity; p. 63)

We are committed to devoting research and educational resources to understand the causes and consequences of inequality and the sources that promote resilience and well-being among diverse groups. We strive for a representative faculty and graduate student body to serve as role models with cultural expertise to support an excellent and diverse student body. Through our mission, we are enacting three separate paths to excellence: 1) research that is more representative of the changing face of society and educational systems in America, 2) research takes into account initiatives to educate the UC community on issues of prejudice and discrimination through experts in this area and 3) fostering students to continue creativity and innovation through having role models with similar experiences or knowledge on what diversity means. In creating these paths, the community is impacted by better resources that speak to diverse experiences, ultimately creating higher pursuit of education and safer spaces for students to interact with one another.

The UC system rewards such endeavors. UCR in particular has a rich community of students from diverse backgrounds with almost 90% of UCR’s undergraduate student body coming from Latinx, Asian, Black, and Native backgrounds, and with 60% first-generation college students. Work on diversity is subject to promotion. Diversity and research on diversity can help individuals at all levels within the university and the community at large to understand the effects of systematic inequality and inch toward eliminating barriers towards inclusion and equality. In turn this will promote a wave of resilience, well-being, and ultimately thriving, among diverse groups. This allows for ethical treatment of students and opens a space for academic freedom. Further, diversity initiatives help promote teaching, professional competence and activities, and university public service by awakening awareness in students, implementing new techniques to solve professional problems, and enforcing policies that promote equality, respectively. Each of these are within the UC’s mission of providing equity and excellence within education and public service.

Being at the forefront of diversity initiatives is difficult, but the UC system recognizes and accounts for this. Given its relatively new and renewed sense of urgency and the barriers in place for halting progression for diversity science and underrepresented academics, the UC will keep these facets in mind for research, educational, and service. The UC has recognized the diversity of California and as such is cognizant of the need for faculty to engage in the pursuit of diversity and inclusion. Within Psychology, we have explicitly laid out how our vision will be enacted in parallel to the initiatives of the UC system:

1. Encouraging and supporting research endeavors and collaborations in diversity science
2. Overseeing the Diversity and Inequality Minor at the graduate level
3. Developing a broad curriculum in diversity science at the undergraduate and graduate levels
4. Recruiting faculty whose research and scholarship focus on human diversity, the causes and consequences of social inequality and discrimination, and how to promote resilience and well-being among disadvantaged groups