Crowding - Part 2 Friday, July 30, 2021
‘The need is now.’ Cecilia V. Estolano, new UC regents chair, calls for expanding enrollment Teresa Watanabe, LA Times, 7-27-21 Cecilia V. Estolano knows firsthand the value of a University of California degree. The new UC Board of Regents chair grew up in the working-class aerospace community of Hawthorne, where there were few Mexican American families like hers. As a child, she saw her stay-at-home mother return to school, earn a UCLA degree and become a community college Spanish teacher. Estolano herself received a master’s degree in urban planning from UCLA and a law degree from UC Berkeley after graduating from Harvard University in social studies. ..As she takes the helm of UC’s governing body this month, Estolano says a top priority will be to expand access to the vaunted public research university system. She’s not yet sure how high enrollment should rise, but she knows when she wants to get started: Now. “I don’t want to study this for three years,” she said in an interview. “We don’t have the time. The need is now.” One of your top priorities is expanding enrollment. Why? The value of a UC education has never been greater before than now. In the last 20 years, the value of having that undergraduate education is almost like the bare minimum requirements for many good-paying jobs. And it’s not just the [bachelor’s programs]. We also need to look at the graduate programs, which are absolutely world-class. Certainly seeing that in the midst of a pandemic ... there was no flagging in the interest in our campuses. Record numbers of applications. The talent is there in the state of California. We just need to create the space for that talent to flower. The future of the state, as well as the future of the nation, really depends on UC expanding its capacity to educate the 106
UCLA Faculty Association Blog: 3rd Quarter 2021
