Did UC-Riverside get image boost from Undercover Boss?

This weekend I watched Undercover Boss as Timothy White, chancellor of the University of California-Riverside disguised himself as Pete Weston, a visiting administrator from a small private college attempting to learn the ways of the big public university.

During the show, White moved out of his home into a hotel near campus and worked in four different jobs: teaching assistant in a chemistry lecture class, assistant track coach, library book stacker and desk worker and tour guide. He had difficulty doing all of the jobs. However, he had no difficulty rewarding the professor, the track coach and two students for the work they did, and he rewarded them in very significant ways. The professor has a scholarship named after her, a full year's tuition for a woman interested in a career in the sciences. The track coach is being sent to school, plus his facilties will be upgraded, so that his team will be able to host a home meet. The two students had student loans forgiven and were have been provided with scholarships as well. All of these people must feel very lucky to have run into the chancellor. I certainly would.

More interesting to me was the perspective I got of UC-Riverside. Ranked 41st among public universities in the 2011 U.S. News Guide, this is an extremely diverse school. Asians represent 40 percent of the student population. Twenty nine percent of the student body is Hispanic and eight percent is African-American. Practically every student ranked in the top quarter of their high school class.

And, unlike the flagship campuses at Berkeley and Los Angeles, none of the spots are reserved for football players. UC-Riverside does not play football. However, the school competes in Division 1 in 17 sports, so athletic scholarships are available.

While UC-Riverside is not the most selective of the University of California campuses--it recently accepted 78 percent of all applicants, almost all from California--it graduates more than two-thirds of its students within six years. Considering both numbers together, this is a very good school. Looking at the U.S. News numbers, they are better than those for the flagship campuses at universities in 24 states.

It seems like Chancellor White runs a school that Californians should be proud of, although it is more expensive--about $12,000 in state--than it probably should be. Those who work on behalf of education in California can only hope that Undercover Boss made for good publicity for a school that is representative of not only the diversity of the state, but also the quality of the students beyond the flagship schools. They deserve better than a bare-bones education. California still educates more fine students than most nations. The state's citizens and politicians should take more notice.