This week’s meeting of the University of California Board
of Regents at UCLA marks the only time the board will visit an
undergraduate campus this year, and an opportunity student
organizers are making sure they don’t waste.
In an effort to voice student concerns regarding issues facing
the regents, UCLA’s Affirmative Action Coalition is planning
a rally set to take place in Royce Quad during the meeting on
Wednesday.
In addition to the rally ““ scheduled for 9:30 a.m. ““
selected student leaders will be sent into the meeting in Covel
Commons to speak during the 20-minute public comment period.
“The regents should always be accountable to the students
… Without the students, there would be no university,” said
Asian Pacific Coalition director Lizzie Cajayon, one of the
organizers of the events.
Under pressure from a projected state budget deficit of $10
billion for 2004-05, the regents have considered a variety of ways
to deal with the UC’s financial hardship.
Wednesday’s meeting is an opportunity for the regents to
discuss priorities for next year’s budget, and while no
concrete decisions will be made until their February meeting,
students want to make sure the board hears the desires of students
now.
“Hopefully between now and then we’ll be able to
mobilize a lot of community support,” said USAC president
Anica McKesey.
Cajayon said about 200 students from UC Berkeley, Santa Cruz,
and Santa Barbara have confirmed their attendance at the rally. She
expects an additional 200 students from UCLA will attend and hopes
to be joined by students from other UC campuses as well.
Organizers say they have four specific concerns they wish to
convey to the regents through the rally and student representatives
inside the meeting.
These include protest against another increase in student
fees ““ which could be raised as much as 40 percent
““ and also against limits on enrollments, a method that could
be used to cut costs. The 40-percent increase would be in addition
to a 30 percent increase enacted by the regents in July.
Student leaders also said they are worried the regents could cut
outreach programs completely, as in past months those programs have
not been mentioned as priorities.
Continuing comprehensive review is another priority of
organizers, who say it could also be a victim of budget cuts.
Comprehensive review is a set of admissions standards used by the
university when reviewing applications that takes a variety of
factors into account.
“We want them to allow students the opportunity for a
holistic review of their application,” Cajayon said.
A peripheral complaint of students is the regents’
inaccessibility. The board’s meetings are almost always held
at UC San Francisco, hundreds of miles away from the majority of
the UC’s undergraduate campuses in southern California.
“I think, in a way, maybe the regents are intimidated by
students when they shouldn’t be. If they were doing their job
to make the university accessible and provide quality education,
they wouldn’t need to be afraid of us,” Cajayon
said.