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GUESTS: Jim Sandoval, Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, Yolanda Moses, Professor of Anthropology and Special Assistant to the Chancellor on Excellence and Diversity

Whereas UCLA faced an enrollment crisis in terms of diversity this past fall, the campus of UC Riverside has seen an increase in the ethnic diversity of its student body in the ten years since the passage of proposition 209. UC Riverside boasts a higher percentage of Latino and African American students enrolled than the UC system wide averages. In 2006, Latinos comprised 25.1% and blacks 7.1% of the undergraduate student body at UC Riverside. Critics have pointed to the level of diversity present at UC Riverside and ask the critical question, “Why don’t all the other UC campuses in the system look like UC Riverside?” As reported last year on Uprising, less than one hundred African Americans enrolled in last fall’s freshman class at UCLA. Administrators at UC Riverside credit their financial aid packages, ambitious recruitment and on campus programs aimed at assisting minority students as the reason for the increase in diversity.