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"I think it was much more homogenous when I was a student. Now it's a much more complicated place, and certainly much more interesting." |
Hard lessons and a little luck
Marquez, a fifth-year senior, said she wished someone would have explained to her when she first enrolled how much her first-year grades would affect her overall grade-point average. She said she never realized how hard it would be to bring that average up. As an upper-division student, Marquez has received extra academic advice through the campus's McNair Scholars Program. Started in 1996 with federal funds, the program aims to increase the number of low-income and underrepresented minority students entering graduate school. But Marquez said her early college career was directed by a series of flukes. When her high school counselors asked her what she wanted to do for a career, she said she liked animals. They suggested she become a veterinarian and helped her apply to UC Davis. During her freshman year, she got a work-study job at the hog barn. There she learned about pig research being conducted by Patricia Berger, a professor of animal science. "I went into her lab expecting to hate it, but I ended up loving it," Marquez said. "I tell people it's all due to financial aid." Marquez said she soon realized the "vet thing" was not for her. But in her lab research, she discovered a passion for reproductive biology. "I fell into it. But it ended up being for the best." * Learning the language Students arrive at UC Davis with a wide range of English skills. Both Marquez and Nguyen failed UC's "Subject A" written English entrance examination and had to take remedial English 57 before retaking and passing the test their freshman year. Marquez said that was an ego blow after taking honors and advanced-placement English in high school. But her experience wasn't an uncommon one. Anywhere from 30 percent to 50 percent of all incoming freshmen fail the entrance exam given to UC-eligible high school students each spring. A total of 930 students were enrolled in English 57 this fall, about a third of them non-native English speakers--a proportion similar to that found in the general student body. Some students lack the language skills to even get into English 57 and must first go through one to three quarters of linguistics classes. A total of 245 students were taking one of the three linguistics courses this fall. What concerns Fred Wood, associate dean of the College of Letters and Science, is the length of time it takes some students who learned English as a second language to meet the entrance requirement. Some students take more than a year to get into English 57 and some have to take that class more than once before passing the test. "This can be a very sad situation," Wood said. "It's very hard on these students to repeatedly fail to meet the requirement. They'll come in to the dean's office with tears in their eyes, asking to do anything else other than to take the class again. They have difficulty understanding the requirement when they are doing well in their chemistry and their physics and their biological science course work." Some students with limited English ability struggle with other course work as well. About 3,000 students come to the campus Learning Skills Center each quarter, seeking help with their writing and other academic work, said center Director Virginia Martucci. Not all students fill out the center's intake cards providing information about themselves. But of those who do, about 42 percent are Asian and 13 percent Chicano or Latino. "We see a tremendous number of students for whom English is a second language," Martucci said. "They need a lot of help.... They're very motivated. They will come in and use the services that are available." * The racial divide Amid the diversity, conflict sometimes erupts. Last April, an African American student was arrested in the beating of a Korean American student on campus. Though the man accused in the assault denied the dispute was racial, the two allegedly had exchanged racial epithets in a confrontation at a shopping center two days earlier. The incident occurred two weeks after vandals defaced campus murals painted by African American and gay student groups. On any given day at the Memorial Union, students at a number of tables seem segregated by race--white, African American, Hispanic and Asian. Formally, too, students often gather according to ethnicity. Close to 50 student ethnic clubs have been created on campus, including seven Filipino organizations and two Vietnamese groups. Nguyen is president of the newly formed Vietnamese American Student Organization. Vice Chancellor Wall, an anthropologist and a linguist, said students today want to hold on to their cultural identities. "I think a lot of people of my generation worry: 'What ever happened to assimilation?' I always tell them the vote is no. Everybody wants to sit at the table with a voice of their own--at least on some issues of cultural identity. In other areas, perspectives may be shared." Tom Compton, executive director of student affairs, graduated from UC Davis with a degree in political science in 1968, finished law school in 1972 and has worked on campus ever since. "Most of the faces on campus were similar to one another in 1967," Compton said. "There are so many different faces today. What it's brought to the campus is a myriad of cultures and a variety of viewpoints. There isn't a single campus culture anymore. When we had Wild West Days on the Quad in the '60s, everyone attended. Today, you would find some people in support, some uninterested and probably some offended by such a program. "I think it was much more homogenous when I was a student. Now it's a much more complicated place, and certainly much more interesting." Racial tension often lies below the surface, some instructors and counselors say. Jennifer Cross, a doctoral student in sociology, said students in one of her recent classes agreed amicably that men and the wealthy enjoy many social privileges. However, the class exploded into a heated debate between white students and students of color when the topic turned to race and ethnicity. "The white students refused to admit that their race granted them any special privileges," said Cross, who also is white. "White students have started experiencing a sense of being colorless, of not having a culture. They get jealous. What they don't see, though, is that people are not afraid to sit next to them." For many African American and Asian American students, Cross said, "the chair next to you is going to be the last one filled.... That's what students at UC Davis tell you life is like." To help students better understand each other, counselors last year started a year-long course on multiculturalism. "We realized that we need to come to an understanding of how to deal with each other, with people from different cultures--how do we stop fear in each other? How do we build bridges? We need to find commonality and unity amidst cultural pluralism if we are to survive as a people and society," said Arnold De La Cruz, a psychologist at the student Counseling Center and administrator of the program. Last year, 87 students took the first quarter of the Multi-cultural Immersion Program, which was funded with a $100,000 grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to promote pluralism and unity. A total of 44 students took all three quarters. The course includes a series of academic lectures on race and culture, and requires students to participate in community internships, field work and small-group discussions examining their own racial attitudes. Students in the final quarter develop and conduct multicultural workshops for others on campus and the surrounding community. Surveys conducted at the start and end of winter quarter found the students who participated became more willing to explore their own experiences with prejudice and more comfortable talking to people of different cultural backgrounds. The campus Student Affairs and provost's offices agreed to fund the course for a second year. De La Cruz hopes the class will eventually become part of the academic program. Cultural misunderstandings sometimes arise between students and the faculty. Some cases of suspected academic misconduct reported by faculty members have revolved around language and cultural differences, said Jeanne Wilson, director of Student Judicial Affairs. Students who speak a different language or come from cultures that prize cooperation sometimes misunderstand when it's appropriate to work in groups and when it is not, Wilson said. "They may think they are still following their professor's instructions to work individually if they solve problems in groups but write down their own answers. As long as they do not copy, they think they have met the requirement of independent effort. "The faculty members may think that by using the terminology 'independent' or 'individual' work, they have communicated that students are not to work together," she said. "But in a number of cases students have misunderstood. "One of the things we recommend to faculty members is they use words like 'work alone' or the phrase 'Do not work with anyone else.'" In fall 1996, the campus residence halls also began offering freshman introductory seminars intended to help students succeed at the university. Topics covered include standards for academic integrity; types of academic, counseling and financial aid services available; and how to get along with roommates. About half the 3,700 freshmen who live on campus attend the voluntary hour-long seminars in the fall, said Karen Roth, associate director of student housing. Roth said most first-generation college students want to do well, but sometimes they need extra direction. "I find them to be very good citizens on campus. It's so important for them to do well, to succeed. They come here wanting to participate in campus life and be good citizens and get the most out of it as they can." |
