Members of UC ACCORD, the Univ-ersity of California’s student and faculty research group studying ways to get more disadvantaged students into higher education, had their day at the capitol Jan. 16, lobbying legislators to support their work and testifying at a hearing on university admissions outreach.
"We came to the capitol to make clear that we care about these issues, and we devote our professional lives to these issues," said UCLA education professor Jeannie Oakes, the director of ACCORD, which stands for the All Campus Collaborative on Outreach, Research and Dissemination. "Our purpose is to turn the reality of a very diverse state from being a problem we have to solve … to one that can be approached in very diverse ways."
At UC Davis alone, researchers in ACCORD are studying the effects of peers on student achievement, the ways preschool literacy practices affect the school performance of students learning English and how Chicana students make decisions about going to graduate school.
Meeting with lawmakers helps ACCORD choose what other topics to pursue, said UC Davis Associate Professor of Education Patricia Gandara. She is one of the few researchers gathering data on the success of programs like the Early Academic Outreach Program (EAOP) and Advancement via Individual Determination (AVID), which are designed to give disadvantaged students who want to go to college a leg up.
"When we set up ACCORD, one of our goals was to do research that mattered and to keep the Legislature and others apprised," Gandara said. "Our goal is to tailor our research to the needs of the state, to the extent possible."
But the group also needs the Legislature’s help. One key issue for the program, which was founded last July, is funding.
Under Gov. Gray Davis’ proposed budget, ACCORD has sustained a 40 percent cut in funding, said Matthew Hargrove, UC Davis’ advocacy director. In the 2001-2002 budget, under a rosier state fiscal picture, the research consortium received $800,000 to support its work. For next year, the governor’s office has proposed $500,000.
After meeting with ACCORD members and the UC Davis Division of Edu-cation dean, Harold Levine, State Sen. Mike Machado, D-Linden, said he would support educational outreach programs in a tight fiscal year with one caveat.
The Legislature, said Machado, whose Senate District 5 was recently redrawn to include Davis, needs to pass a budget that "makes sense economically, is responsible fiscally and also shows a compassion for the people we are going to serve."
But he was impressed by the work of ACCORD, Machado said. And he was supportive of UC Davis’ plans to expand its education division. The university, he said, was well positioned in Northern California to serve both urban and rural students from immigrant backgrounds.
"The ability to have programs to help (students) understand our values of education, help them assimilate and help their parents, will only help us all in California," Machado said.
ACCORD members also presented their research at an afternoon hearing before the Senate Select Committee on College and University Admissions and Outreach. The committee has been meeting since 1997 with the goal of diversifying higher education enrollment, said committee consultant Jose Hernandez.
The hearing also included testimony from California State University Chancellor Charles Reed and Jacqueline Powers Doud, president of Mount St. Mary’ College in Los Angeles. The latter school enrolls a student body that is 74 percent non-white and 98 percent of whom qualify for financial aid.
Two students, Associated Students of UC Davis President Tiqula Bledsoe and a UC Berkeley law student, Felicia Sze, also gave testimony about their own experiences trying to increase minority enrollments on their campuses.
Both students noted that because of poor university funding, minority students often bear the burden of doing outreach work to younger students, volunteering their time while keeping up with classes and part-time jobs.
"We have to find ways to fund students’ (outreach) work so that they are not stretched all the time," Sze said.
The Senate committee, chaired by Richard Alarcon, D-San Fernando Valley, is expected to develop policy recommendations by the end of the month leading to legislation on admission issues. "We simply can’t wait for Tidal Wave II (the anticipated student enrollment boom) for problems to solve themselves," Alarcon said. "We need to be proactive."