Students: 'Count me in!'

By Cynthia Lee

“Disaggregation” is the name of the official process. But UCLA students who are Thai, Taiwanese, Cambodian, Hmong, Native Hawaiian, Tongan and members of nine other ethnic groups call it something else: victory.

UC students, led by a group from UCLA, waged an intense nine-month campaign that called for UC to break out the general category of Asian Pacific Islanders into 23 different ethnic groups on application, admissions and enrollment forms so that data could be collected on each group. UC had already been collecting data on nine ethnic groups within this category. The Asian Pacific Coalition (APC), an umbrella organization of 21 UCLA student groups, managed to gain the support of many community organizations and students systemwide for its Count Me In! campaign.

The campaign started last spring after APC had joined the African Student Union in rallying around the African-American admissions crisis at UCLA. After the admissions process was changed, groups within APC began to realize that there were issues of admissions and retention that were affecting their own communities.

“We want this additional information to better understand exactly what the needs of these underserved communities, like the Cambodians and the Hmong, are,” said Candice Shikai, the UCLA student who spearheaded the campaign as director of APC.

The additional ethnic data will mean, for example, that UC will now be able to evaluate the graduation and retention rates of Cambodian students, many of whom come from underprivileged and underserved regions.

“The prevalent model minority myth can make many disadvantaged members of the Asian Pacific Islander community invisible to policy makers,” Shikai said. “Collecting data on more Asian-American and Pacific Islander groups will result in a more accurate picture of how these students are doing.”

Without hard data on such student populations at UCLA, Shikai said, “student outreach programs [aimed at preparing K-12 students for college] have problems being able to justify their need for funding.”

UC will start collecting data on the additional groups with the class entering in the fall of 2009.

“My goal is for improved data reporting to spur greater accountability regarding overlooked populations in our student body,” said Judy Sakaki, UC vice president for student affairs.

Shikai said disaggregation is only the first step. Next, UCLA students want to use the new data to look for funding to help these communities overcome disparities in education and other areas.