The University of California updated its ‘If all of UC were just 100 students’ website with data collected by the UC’s Institutional Research, Assessment and Planning office, according to a Nov. 9 UC press release.
The data visualization project reimagines the UC’s 225,000 freshmen and transfer students as only 100 students and found that 40 are the first in their families to attend college and 35 come from low-income families, according to the press release.
Ethnic studies professor Laura Pérez believes data models such as this project have the potential to help other regions that are rapidly diversifying.
“How successful we are in creating models of enriching and mutually respectful relations across ethnic ancestries is crucial,” Pérez said in an email. “(It) could provide models for the rest of the country and many parts of the world which are quickly diversifying as well.”
The website, originally published in May 2019, aims to highlight the diversity in the undergraduate body of the UC system, the press release added. UC Office of the President spokesperson Joanna McWilliams added that the update on the site outlines the UC’s diversity based on 2020 data.
According to this breakdown, if you were to look at 100 students in the UC system, 34 students would be Asian, 25 would be Latinx, 21 would be white, four would be African American and the remaining 16 would identify as another ethnicity.
Pérez noted that moving forward, the UC could do more to be inclusive in the data they collect.
“(There is) a much farther way to go with equitable representation of graduate students, staff, and especially faculty, as we climb into top administration and full professorship,” Pérez said in the email.
Other insights from the project include the languages spoken by undergraduate students, how many receive financial aid and how many do community service.
The data also shows how many students transferred from a community college: 29 out of 100 students.
Pérez added that the UC should invest in research, curriculum development, faculty hiring and student support centers to aid a “multicultural campus community.”
She also noted that there is still progress to be made with the Latinx, Asian American, Indigenous, African American and other undergraduate student populations in order to be more equitable.
“The university system should serve the state population and its children in an equitable fashion and prepare properly for the projected future,” Pérez said in the email.
