JASON LIU/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Thomas
Soteros-McNamara tmcnamara@media.ucla.edu Â
This week, the Class of 2002 graduates and leaves behind a
campus far removed from the atmosphere which greeted them in 1998.
All the promise that the autumn of ’98 held evaporated, but
not without a trail. The university proved to be a victim of its
own success and in more ways than one.
After recruiting the best class of freshmen in both football and
basketball, new Bruins watched Edgerrin James and the Miami
Hurricanes steal their tickets to the Fiesta Bowl in December. Then
in March, Steve Lavin was unable to rally his team past the first
round.
Ever since 1998, UCLA struggled to get top high school talent,
but it ultimately had not brought a championship in those most
conspicuous of sports. The rest of the campus it seems never
recovered.
The student body since ’98 has been torn between apathy
and action, between the calm and the storm. Punctuating the first
quarter for the class of 2002 was a most bewildering strike by
teaching assistants hoping to form a union. Graduate students
exhibited varying degrees of concern, but for freshmen, the true
UCLA had revealed itself.
Some were vehemently for, a few vehemently against, but the
majority of TAs walked passed the picket lines.
A fire during finals week in December of 1999 under the pretext
of the “midnight yell” demonstrated this combination of
alienation and anxiety all too well. Both Chancellor Albert
Carnesale and Dean of Students Robert Naples vowed to crack down on
future incidents, but it only widened the gap between students and
administrators.
Just days before the disturbance, freshman Michael Negrete had
gone missing from his Dykstra dorm room. Despite a massive manhunt,
Negrete remains missing to this day and a testament to the
impersonal nature of UCLA. Despite being in on-campus housing,
surrounded by 7,000 other people, Negrete disappeared and has
become at once an urban legend and among the most challenging
investigations in UCPD history.
The average student watched Bill Bradley and John McCain visit
in 2000 only to come with few new ideas for the student population.
The Student government at UCLA found itself with a new name,
“Praxis,” after former President Elizabeth Houston
reminded Daily Bruin readers often of the school’s oldest
political club’s antics. More and more, the Undergraduate
Student Association Council was reduced to a lobbying organization
for the repeal of Standing Policy 1 and 2. Bruin Walk became choked
with professional advertisers and other solicitors, all but
obscuring the ability of students to hand out informational flyers
to one another.
As donations to UCLA continued to increase in size and amount,
there were signs that a correction was in order. UCLA deftly
avoided blackouts in late 2000 with the help of its own power
plant.
Nevertheless, electricity manipulation schemes toasted the
remnants of the technology “bubble” and the economy in
general. Again, most students struggled to articulate themselves as
the new millennium began.
Affirmative action supporters, led by outgoing USAC President
Karren Lane, managed to deflect fears of rolling blackouts long
enough to stage a massive one day protest that ended by disrupting
a mayoral debate at UCLA’s Royce Hall. That school year ended
with a repeal of SP-1 and SP-2 and a new feeling of
uncertainty.
The start of the new school year in 2001 was preempted by the
horror of international terrorism and the fear of a continued
economic slump. Even as the recession ended, the university found
itself with revenue shortfalls and the potential for budget cuts.
For most students there would be no escape. “BruinGo!,”
a very popular bus ridership program found itself broke. Unionizing
food workers sought higher pay as well, reinforcing the idea that
it would cost students dearly to remedy this economic downturn on
campus, either through higher fees or reduced services.
1998 seems so far away as the class of 2002 begins its slow,
agonizing procession toward the podium and into a world of
uncertainty.
Bob Toledo and Steve Lavin have survived; the URSA telephone
service and Lot 14 have not. In face of these dramatic and
unsettling times, the Class of 2002 ventures forth into the
maelstrom, into the dangerous world that beckons beyond the turn in
the road.
Will they choose public service or the Playstation 2? Are the
worst days behind us, or yet to come? The answer depends on how
these graduates handle the adversity dealt to them. The halcyon
days of 1998 might return sooner than anticipated, but there will
be no shortage of adversity in the future. The past four years
remind us how quickly times can change and how sometimes you never
realize the value of something until it is gone.