Femi Ogundele: A diverse student body fosters excellence

UC Berkeley Assistant Vice Chancellor and Director of Undergraduate Admissions Olufemi "Femi” Ogundele played a key role in bringing more diversity to Berkeley's 2020 freshman class. (UC Berkeley photo by Stephen McNally) UC Berkeley released its 2020-21 freshman admission numbers today, which show the most ethnically diverse admitted class in more than 30 years, in terms of offers of admission to African American and Latinx and Chicanx students. Those numbers increased by about 40% over the previous year. The campus also saw gains in various measures of greater socio-economic diversity among students offered admission. Olufemi "Femi" Ogundele, who began his work in January 2019 as assistant vice chancellor and director of undergraduate admissions, revamped the admissions office's approach to key aspects of its work as the campus sought greater diversity by many measures. Berkeley News spoke recently with Ogundele about his rich experience working in admissions at various institutions, why Berkeley isn't "just another highly selective institution,” what steps he took to make the changes now yielding positive results and the important tasks that remain. Berkeley News : When you started work here as head of undergraduate admissions in January 2019, you took on key campus initiatives to bring more ethnic and socio-economic diversity to our admissions process.