San Francisco City Administrator Carmen Chu appointed to University of California Board of Regents
(SAN FRANCISCO) San Francisco City Administrator Carmen Chu was appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom to the University of California (UC) Board of Regents. Chu became the fourth Chinese American to serve as a regent in the 154-year history of UC and the first Chinese American UC Regent in almost 10 years.
Newsom announced on July 22 four new appointments to the UC Board of Regents, including Chu. Four appointees will serve for 12 years. The appointments are effective immediately although they still need to be confirmed by the California State Senate.
UC Board of Regents is the governing board of all ten campuses in the University of California system. Under the system, 18 regents of the total of 26 regents are appointed by the governor with a 12-year term.
Lester Lee, a technology entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, was appointed in 1993 to be the first Chinese American UC Regent in history. However, he only served on the UC Regents Board for one year after the state Senate disapproved his appointment.
David Lee, also a technology entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, was appointed in 1994. Lee served his full term on the Board until 2006.
Leslie Tang Schilling, a businesswoman in San Francisco and a member of the Committee of 100, was appointed in 2005 as the first Chinese American woman UC Regent in history. Schilling served eight years until 2013.
Since then there was no Chinese American to be appointed to the UC Regents Board until last Friday on July 22. Chu becomes the fourth Chinese American UC Regent in the history of UC since it was founded in 1868.
Chu has not responded to Wind Newspaper's request for comments by press time. She responded to Mayor London Breed on Twitter and wrote, "Thank you Mayor Breed! It is my deepest honor to serve on the UC Board of Regents. I look forward to working with the other Board members to strengthen the UC's impact on California and the students the UC serves!"
Chu, 44, was born in Los Angeles. She is a daughter of the first generation of Chinese immigrants from China. Her parents owned a Chinese restaurant in Los Angeles where she grew up.
Chu earned her bachelor’s degree in public policy from Occidental College in Southern California and came to the San Francisco Bay Area for graduate school. Chu received her master’s degree in public policy from the University of California, Berkeley.
When Governor Newsom was the Mayor of San Francisco, Chu started serving at the city government in the Mayor’s Office of Public Policy and Finance from 2004 to 2007. She was appointed by Newsom in 2007 as District 4 Supervisor in the city and successfully ran for re-elections to serve at the Board of Supervisors for six years from 2007 to 2013.
Chu was appointed by Late San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee in 2013 as the city's Assessor-Recorder. After serving as the elected Assessor-Recorder for eight years from 2013 to 2021, Chu was appointed by Mayor London Breed as the City Administrator in 2021 and has served that position up to the present time. UC Regents do not receive compensation.
Ling-Chi Wang, retired UC Berkeley professor and long time advocate for UC admissions for Asian American students, was glad to see Newsom appointed Chu to the UC Board of Regents. "It is indeed a disgrace and an outrage to have no Chinese American representation on the 26-member Board of Regents when Chinese Americans have the strongest presence in all ten campuses of the UC system," Wang stated.
“During my 5-year battle, 1984-89, with UC Berkeley’s discriminatory admission policies against Asian American applicants, we had to fight this huge institution the hard way: political organizing and mobilizing the communities to carry on the fight for five years," Wang said. "The outcome of that fight: Chancellor I. Michael Heyman acknowledged the mistakes and apologized to the Asian American communities. It was a bittersweet victory. Chancellor Tien’s appointment finally put an end to the controversy."
In respect to Chu's appointment, "I hope she will be a strong advocate for Asian American students, staff, and faculty. Under Governor Newsom, Asian American Studies in Berkeley has finally gotten some support from the state. It is the oldest and first Asian American Studies Program in a research university in the U.S. Asian American studies across the U.S. deserves a lot more support than it has been getting in higher education in California and across the U.S.," said Wang, "I hope Carmen will do something about that."
"In spite of our strong presence in all ten campuses of UC, Asian Americans continue to be woefully underrepresented on the faculty and administration across the entire system,” Wang stated.
Henry Der, former Executive Director of Chinese for Affirmative Action and Assistant Superintendent at State Public Instruction, commented that Chu should be familiar with the challenges that California students, in particular people of color and immigrants, face in gaining admission to and securing a successful educational experience at the University of California.
"Although more California high school graduates of all ethnic/racial backgrounds have achieved the required coursework and grades for freshman admission than ever before, not all eligible California high school graduates are granted admission to one of the UC campuses. UC has long relied on out-of-state students who pay the full cost of tuition to fill holes in UC's annual budget," said Der.
Der hoped that Chu and members of the UC regents would successfully lobby the Governor to allocate a greater amount of state funds to support the University of California, as well as the California State University and Community Colleges.
"Carmen represents how a student has truly benefited from a UC degree and over the years, demonstrated the skills, knowledge and experience in being an effective public servant and leader on public policies that affect every citizen and community member, without regard to immigration status. I wish her a very successful, productive tenure on the UC Board of Regents," Der said.
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