Noguera

In the eyes of the nation, Berkeley, Calif. is the nerve center of radical social protest.

From the Free Speech movement in the 1960s to the city council's 1991 abolition of Columbus Day in favor of 'Indigenous Peoples' Day,' the city and the university have together led the crusade for liberal social change.

So when Berkeley activist and education scholar Pedro Noguera told the university's student newspaper he was accepting a position at Harvard in part because the venerable New England institution had a stronger commitment to diversity, more than a few jaws dropped in amazement.

Not only will his Berkeley students and colleagues mourn the loss of Noguera's scholarship and activism, but his unorthodox pronouncement has set tongues wagging on both sides of the land.

Backsliding in Berkeley

Coming from a working-class background in Brooklyn, N.Y., Noguera, 40, says he might not have gotten into Brown University without the benefit of admissions policies which took into consideration his potential contribution to the school's diversity--not just his grades.

But although he admits to experiencing "a bit of culture shock," as a student from a family in which neither parent had gone to college, he quickly distinguished himself academically.

Noguera stayed at Brown to receive his master's degree in sociology, in addition to a teaching credential, before heading to the West Coast to work on his PhD. After earning a doctorate in sociology from Berkeley in 1989, Noguera initially chose to teach there because of the school's relatively high level of diversity, he told the San Francisco Chronicle in November.

But now, he says, things are different. The pace of faculty diversification is stagnant. And with the passage of Proposition 209 in 1996, minority students--like himself--may not get that extra boost.

"I find it hard to accept remaining on a campus where such students [as myself] will increasingly not have a chance to receive an education," he wrote in a letter to the Daily Cal, Berkeley's student newspaper.

It is unconscionable, Noguera added, that there are only 98 African-American students in Berkeley's first-year class and two-thirds of the males are scholarship athletes.

"That's because black students who can entertain us on the football field or the basketball court will always be welcome at Berkeley, regardless of their grades or test scores," he wrote in his letter to the Daily Cal.

But Noguera does not fully blame the Berkeley administration for the decline in student diversity, realizing that the school's hands are tied by Proposition 209, the 1996 California initiative ending affirmative action.

Berkeley may be powerless to increase diversity in its student body, but the diversity of the faculty is a goal well within their reach, as faculty committees are largely responsible for hiring new professors. Noguera says he finds these committees' inaction, and the fact that they have failed to increase the numbers of women and minorities in their ranks, reprehensible.

"I haven't tried to attack people, but rather to make them aware that people out there exist with different backgrounds, " he says.

Noguera first publicly announced his negotiations with Harvard at the end of an Oct. 26 lecture for his class on race and ethnicity in education because, he told the Daily Cal, he wanted to stop a flurry of rumors.

The Berkeley campus, which responded to the passing of Prop. 209 in 1996 with thousand-strong demonstrations in the university's Sproul Plaza, reacted with consternation to Noguera's departure.

"Without his influence, it might be even harder to get more diversity on our faculty," Giang Hong, a sophomore in Noguera's class told the Daily Cal.

Noguera also served as a role model to many students as both a person of color and an activist who takes his lessons outside the classroom.

"My departure does have an effect on a lot of students," he says.

Noguera has some regrets about the way things have played out and says that he did not intend for his departure to become a media event.

"It's not comfortable having your personal life in the paper," he says.

Harvard's Distinguished Diversity?

In spite of the longtime association between Harvard and WASP-y elitism, Noguera says he believes that Harvard has succeeded in many ways that Berkeley has failed.

Without limitations like those imposed by Proposition 209, Harvard can fill its first-year class with a good deal more freedom. And the University's faculty and administration, Noguera says, consider diversifying their ranks to be a priority.

"They are doing a lot to get things moving. It's not just where you would expect it--in African-American Studies--it's in traditional academic departments," he told the Daily Cal.

Harvard Graduate School of Education (GSE) dean Jerome T. Murphy agreed with Noguera's assertion.

"We at Harvard are making a concerted effort to diversify the student body, the faculty and the curriculum," he says.

But others are not so sanguine. Christopher F. Edley, Jr., a professor at the Law School since 1981, says he feels Harvard has met with limited success.

"My impression is the GSE is trying very hard," he says. "But there are serious problems. The law school, for example, not withstanding prominent African-American appointments, is in desperately bad shape with respect to other minorities."

Tawny S. Ochoa '01, vice-president of RAZA, Harvard's Latino student group, also has mixed feelings. While she praised Harvard's attempt to bring a diverse group of students to campus, she feels the effort may not go far enough.

"I think they are doing a good job reaching out to students with mixed backgrounds whose parents may not have even gone to college," she says.

But she feels the school could do a better job integrating the minorities with the rest of the school.

"At times I felt like I shouldn't be here and the school didn't do anything to help that," she says.

Ochoa also feels that there should be a stronger effort to recruit more Latino faculty.

"I have been asked so many times where I'm from in Mexico. I tell them I'm American, I've only been there once on vacation. I would like to see someone who could come in and address this," Ochoa says.

A Scholar and an Activist

Negotiations with Noguera were finalized last month. In September 2000 he will become one of 22 tenured professors at the GSE.

"He is a wonderful appointment for Harvard...a terrific scholar-activist," Murphy says.

The majority of Noguera's research and teaching has been in the area of urban education, in particular the ways in which schools respond to social and economic forces within the urban environment. He has been praised for applying his philosophies to real-life situations.

From 1990-94 Noguera served on the City of Berkeley School Board. He says he intends to work with public schools Boston area--but not as an elected official.

He has also been praised for his engaging classroom style and was a recipient of the 1997 UC Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award.

"No one on the Berkeley faculty has contributed more to the resolution of the problems facing urban education in the East Bay," a colleague said in a UC Berkeley news release when Noguera won the teaching award.

Noguera has also been a member of the U.S. Public Health Service Centers for Disease Control Taskforce on Youth Violence and won a Wellness Foundation award for research on youth violence in 1995. He has also served as chair of the Committee on Ethics in Research and Human Rights for the American Educational Research Association.

Noguera is the author of the book The Imperatives of Power: Political Change and the Social Basis of Regime Support in Grenada (1997), an offshoot from his doctoral work.

He has also written articles on "Confronting the Urban in Urban Education" (1996), "Charismatic Leadership and Popular Support" (1996), and "Preventing Violence in Schools" (1995).

Noguera indirectly replaces Charles V. Willie, a sociology professor who will retire after this year. Willie was appointed by President Carter to the President's Commission on Mental Health.

Although Noguera will not hold Willie's chair, he will cover the same content area, which Murphy called "schools and communities."

Following Willie's retirement announcement last year, Harvard began a search for a replacement--someone with a blend of expertise in urban education and community issues.

According to Dean Murphy, Noguera emerged as the leading candidate for the new position. Harvard then encouraged him to apply, Noguera says.