Thursday, April 25, 1996
Chee outlines views on fees, campus issues
By Ryan Ozimek
Daily Bruin Contributor
Running unopposed in this year’s Graduate Students Association
(GSA) election, Grace Chee is days away from winning next year’s
external vice presidency.
When elected, Chee, a first-year history graduate student, will
work as UCLA’s graduate student representative to university and
student groups outside of campus.
Chee, of the Progressive Students for Action slate, works in
partnership with the internal vice president candidate Danise
Kimball.
"We talked and decided to run together because we had similar
ideas about affirmative action and SAGE (Student Association of
Graduate Employees)," Kimball said. "And if elected, I look forward
to working with her next year."
Part of Chee’s platform includes widening student outreach. Chee
supports affirmative action policies, and hopes to organize a
campaign against the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), a
state proposal to ban race and gender preferences.
A key issue in Chee’s platform is affirmative action and
diversity within the graduate student body. As the largest public
higher education institution in the nation, the University of
California often serves as a model for other university systems
across the country, Chee said.
"One of the main reasons why I chose to become involved in
student organizations was because of issues such as affirmative
action and CCRI," Chee said.
In order to increase the involvement of the graduate government
in promoting affirmative action, she would like to see the
association work with the Affirmative Action Coalition, a
student-run organization that orchestrates protests and rallies in
support of affirmative action.
Chee also wants the graduate government to align with an
anti-CCRI campaign on campus in combatting the upcoming
initiative.
"These types of policies and legislation seem to increasingly
reflect a growing backlash against people of color and women, and
affect not only the student population but the entire state and
have tremendous implications for the rest of the country," Chee
said.
Creating better community outreach programs that would help
recruit more students of color, women, and those economically
disadvantaged is another priority, she said.
"GSA needs to help graduate schools begin to recruit more women
and people of color," Chee continued. "We need to have a better
link between the graduate students and the outside community."
Chee also wants to focus specifically on graduate school issues.
She wants to fight fee hikes in professional schools, increase
inter-graduate school communication and build coalitions with other
graduate groups.
As external vice president, Chee will attend University of
California Students Association (UCSA) meetings, where she and
other student representatives from across the state will continue
to push for a stop to student fee increases.
Recently, Chee and other student representatives have lobbied
regents to oppose the progressive fee increases. This year, she
gained support of two regents to oppose fee increases, she
said.
This year’s external vice president, Kevin Welner, agreed that
fighting fee hikes will still be a priority for the graduate
government in the future.
"This past year, registration fees have been one of our main
concerns," Welner said. "And I’m sure it will continue to be a
concern for GSA in the years to come."
Besides fee concerns, Chee also wants to improve communications
among graduate departments by creating a forum of various campus
groups.
"Schools such as the medical and law schools have organizations
representing them," Chee said. "I’d like to get them all together
in a forum to discuss different topics concerning the schools."
Also hoping to increase interaction among different University
of California campuses, Chee wants the graduate association to
build coalitions with groups outside of UCLA. By creating these
coalitions, Chee believed that "GSA could serve the community as a
resource while concurrently the community could give GSA a powerful
mandate for action."
As for student services, Chee has several plans that she would
like to see the association implement next year. One project is a
textbook/reader program that would work in conjunction with the
council and departmental representative to provide a book lending
service to the graduate students.
Chee would also like to create a new position, called Campus
Organization Director, to help the graduate government become more
involved with the greater graduate community.
"The director would be able to help GSA stay aware of on-campus
issues such as affirmative action and the anti-CCRI campaign," Chee
said.
The last part of Chee’s slate involves raising the graduate
government’s support of the Student Association of Graduate
Employees (SAGE). The graduate government has supported the
organization in the past and she believes that it is important for
the association to continue this relationship.
"SAGE is important to the university because it helps graduate
and undergraduate students … (and creates) educational
environments which affects all students," Chee said.
Her platform is endorsed by various on-campus organizations,
including the Asian American Studies Graduate Student Association,
the Black Graduate Student Association and SAGE.
"In representing the graduate community, I hope that GSA takes a
stronger, and more active stance on current issues … to better
reflect the voices in the graduate student community," Chee
said.
The elections will end Friday. If elected, Chee will assume the
position of external vice president May 28.
FRED HE/Daily Bruin
Grace Chee is running unopposed for GSA EVP.