Sunday, March 10, 2019

Diversity is our Strength

The University of California has hired a diversity bureaucrat at $250,000 a year in regular salary and possibly more than $100,000 in other benefits.  An internationally known expert in opto-electronics in the university’s engineering school, received a little over $150,000.  The UC San Diego Academic Senate decided that the school would no longer offer a master’s degree in electrical and computer engineering.

STEM graduates have become a vital cog in the wheel of global prosperity and unsurprisingly, China is leading the way. The World Economic Forum reported that China had 4.7 million recent STEM graduates in 2016. India, another academic powerhouse, had 2.6 million new STEM graduates last year while the U.S. had 568,000.  Unfortunately there is no data comparing the number of diversity bureaucrats in China and the U.S.

From the Caltech alumni magazine:
A Conversation with April Castañeda
April Castañeda, appointed in the summer of 2018 to the newly created position of assistant vice president for equity and equity investigations and Title IX coordinator at Caltech, will design and implement a comprehensive approach to all issues pertaining to discrimination, unlawful harassment, and sexual misconduct.
Though the role is new for both the Institute and Castañeda, she is no stranger to campus, having served in a variety of roles at Caltech (in the provost’s and president’s offices, as well as Human Resources) for more than 20 years before spending two year as the assistant director for human resources at JPL.
WHAT MOTIVATES YOU TO DO THIS WORK?
I’ve spent most of my career doing things that are engaged around social justice. It’s important to me that people have the rights and the ability to do good work.
When I first came to Caltech, I was reluctant to be an intern here because before then I had always worked with underserved populations, and here I saw a lot of privilege.
About 15 years ago I was walking across the Caltech campus when I paused to listen to a young lady tour guide telling a group of potential applicants and their parents about life at Caltech. One dad asked, “How hard is the homework?”
The sophomore tour guide thought about it for a moment, and then broke into tears. After 10 or 15 seconds of sobbing, she recovered enough to say that while last year had been pretty tough, this year was much better.

But when Ms. Castañeda first came to Caltech, she, instead, “saw a lot of privilege.”
Marjory was unavailable for comment

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