University of California

DIVERSITY IN UNIVERSITY ADMISSIONS: Affirmative Action, Percent Plans, and Holistic Review by Zachary Bleemer CSHE 6.19 (July 2019)

Zachary Bleemer
2019

There is considerable interest in the impact of policy alternatives to race-based affirmative action (AA) on under-represented minority (URM) university enrollment. Widely-implemented alternatives include percent plans, which guarantee admission to top high school students, and holistic review, in which applications are evaluated on a comprehensive set of merits. This study estimates each policy's URM enrollment effect at the University of California (UC). Difference-in-difference estimates show that AA increased annual UC URM enrollment by more than 800 students (20%), and by more than 60...

Creating a Great Public University: The History and Influence of Shared Governance at the University of California by John Aubrey Douglass, CSHE 4. 2023 (October 2023)

John Aubrey Douglass
2023

Since establishing its first campus in 1868, the University of California (UC), California’s landgrant university, developed into the nation’s first multicampus systemin the United States, and is today widely recognized as the world’s premier network of public research universities. This short essay provides a...

The Rise of the Publics: American Democracy, the Public University Ideal, and the University of California by John Aubrey Douglass

John Aubrey Douglass
2018

In the post-Revolutionary War era, private institutions dominated America’s emerging higher education landscape, all tied to sectarian communities and often with limited forms of public financing. The United States could have sustained that dominance, essentially differing to the private sector in expanding access, and delaying the “rise of the publics.” This did not happen. A major turning point came in the mid-1800s. Private colleges seemed incapable or simply not interested in serving the broader needs of American society. Institutions such as the University of Virginia, and the new...

Exploring Funding Options for the University of California by John Aubrey Douglass

John Aubrey Douglass
2018
Despite massive cuts in state funding over the past thirty years, the University of California has managed to keep enrollment on pace with growth in population. With California’s population projected to grow 22.5 percent (from 40 to 49 million by 2040), that will no longer be the case, unless UC is able to find a new funding model. Informed by the historical analysis in the report Approaching a Tipping Point: A History and Prospectus of Funding for the University of California, this essay revisits the options for funding UC from that report, including: reinvestment by California lawmakers and...

The University of California Versus the SAT: A Brief History and Contemporary Critique, by John Aubrey Douglass, CSHE 8.20 (June 2020)

John Aubrey Douglass
2020

On May 21, 2020, the University of California (UC) Board of Regents unanimously approved the suspension of the standardized test requirement (ACT/SAT) for all California freshman applicants until fall 2024. UC plans to create a new test that better aligns with the content the University expects students to have mastered for college readiness. However, if a new test does not meet specified criteria in time for fall 2025 admission, UC will eliminate the standardized testing requirement for California students. The Board’s decision is the seeming culmination of a 19 year debate over the role...

California's Affirmative Action Fight: Power Politics and the University of California by John Aubrey Douglass

John Aubrey Douglass
2018

This essay discusses the contentious events leading to the decision by the University of California’s Board of Regents to end affirmative action in admissions, hiring and contracting at the university in July 1995. This controversial decision provided momentum for California’s passage of Proposition 209 the following year ending “racial preferences” for all of the state’s public agencies. In virtually any other state, the debate over university admissions would have bled beyond the confines of a university’s governing board. The board would have deferred to lawmakers and an even more...

BERKELEY VERSUS THE SAT: A Regent, a Chancellor and a Debate on the Value of Standardized Testing in Admissions by John Aubrey Douglass CSHE 3.19 (January 2019)

John Aubrey Douglass
2019

The following essay details a debate between UC Berkeley and a Regent who made charges of discrimination against Asian-American students that are similar to the current legal challenges facing Harvard University. The crux of such charges: on average, that one racial or ethnic group is more “qualified” than other groups, often underrepresented minorities, yet they have lower admissions rates. In 2004, Regent John Moores, convinced of discriminatory practices toward Asian-American students in the admissions process at Berkeley, did his own analysis of UC admissions data focused on SAT scores...

Takuya Kimura

Professor, Ph.D, Kyushu University, Japan
Takuya KIMURA is a Japanese Sociologist of Education. He hold Ph.D in Educational Planning from Tohoku University . He is a professor at Kyushu University and the National Center for University Entrance Examinations. He is also the founder and president of Japan Association of College and University Admissions Profession (JACUAP). He holds M.A. in Educational Philosophy from the Graduate School of Education at the University of Tokyo. He has served as Assistant Professor at Kyoto University, Assistant Professor and Associate Professor at Nagasaki University, Associate Professor...

Ellen Switkes

Ellen Switkes is Senior Associate and Co-founder of the “Breakfast with George” mentoring program for higher education executives who are ready to move into senior executive positions. She also is co-founder and Director of CSHE’s Berkeley Institutes on Higher Education (BIHE), targeted to higher education leaders from nations outside the United States. BIHE focused on the essential characteristics of major research universities in the United States, with particular emphasis on the University of California as a case study, and on linking Institute programs with CSHE-based policy research...

Cristina González

Professor Emerita, School of Education & Department of Spanish, UC Davis
Education

Ph.D., Spanish – Indiana University, Bloomington – 1981

Select Publications Books

Clark Kerr's University of California: Leadership, Diversity and Planning in Higher Education (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2011).

Articles “Higher Education Reasserts its Role as a Public Good,” University World News, 422, July 15, 2016. Liliana Pedraja, Co-Author. “Privatization and Access: The Chilean Higher Education Experiment and Its Discontents,” Research and Occasional Papers Series, Center for Studies in Higher Education, University of California, Berkeley, CSHE...