With their terms coming to an end, current members of the Undergraduate Students Association Council are looking back on the past year to reflect on their achievements and the obstacles they faced in regard to campaign promises from last year’s election.
While candidates had their own specific projects and programs, the council as a whole agreed at the beginning of the year on a number of issues to tackle together called “action agenda items.”
And with USAC elections coming up in May, many members of the council said they were happy with the progress this year’s council made.
“We chose very ambitious projects, and we were relatively successful,” said President Marwa Kaisey.
Still, while the council was generally optimistic about the year, some noted that slate politics sometimes got in the way of progress. A slate is a group of students that pool their resources during elections and run on a common platform.
The council’s agenda items this year included increasing campus safety, giving students a stronger say in campus affairs and other issues that would affect them, and easing transfer students’ transition to UCLA. Councilmembers said USAC created the Campus Safety Alliance in response to student concerns about safety at the university, in particular the incident in November in which a student was hit with a Taser in Powell Library.
The alliance is a coalition made up of students, university police and administrators that helps address campus safety issues through plans and projects.
Councilmembers also said that in order to help transfer students adjust to UCLA, USAC put on three programs in fall quarter to prepare transfer students for networking and achieving academic success.
“We have a lot of transfers, and we’re trying to make things easier for them,” Kaisey said.
As for getting students more involved, the council organized a number of student advocacy and leadership projects.
External Vice President Tina Park said she worked on increasing voter registration among students and worked on helping students lobby in Sacramento on important issues such as fee hikes.
Councilmembers said they were fairly happy with their progress on these issues, though they had some reservations. General Representative Samer Araabi said while some projects were fully realized, others did not quite get off the ground.
“Some (action agenda items) came together really well; others did not do so well,” he said.
Despite councilmembers’ optimism, the year did not pass without difficulties.
Kaisey said one of the obstacles this year’s council faced was having a council evenly divided between slates, with five councilmembers from Students First! and five from Bruins United. But Kaisey added that creating action agenda items was an important step toward working together.
“Everyone sees this as a very divided council, so it was important that we share our common goals with the campus through developing action agenda items,” she said.
Kaisey said the most productive work came from individual offices.
“For individual goals we did very well this year. I’m proud of the offices and how much they accomplished,” she said.
Internal Vice President Greg Cendana said he believes councilmembers focused more on these individual projects than tackling the larger issues as a whole.
“I feel like numerous councilmembers did a lot within their respective offices, but there was a lack of collective action,” he said.
Cendana blamed the shortfall at least partly on slate politics.
“Unfortunately, I do feel that slate politics caused our lack of collective effort,” said Cendana.
Park echoed Cendana’s criticism of political infighting on the council, but added that she believes one of the obstacles to the success of action agenda items and the council as a whole was what she called a focus on smaller-scale, specific issues instead of a larger vision for the university.
“We spent a lot of time focusing on administrative details like bylaw changes instead of having longer discussions about our action items and how we can come together to work on it,” she said.
Unlike Cendana and Park, Kaisey said she believes having a council evenly split was actually an impetus for people to cooperate more.
“It encouraged us to come together and work on issues that we had decided as a whole our council should work on,” she said.
Cultural Affairs Commissioner Marivell Caba said she believes that though USAC is not without its faults, this year’s council should be commended for its efforts and hard work.
“We’re doing a good job and we’re doing as much as we can. I would give (council) a B, but there’s room for improvement. We’re not perfect, but we strive to be the students’ voice,” she said.
Kaisey echoed this view, saying that despite the split council, USAC was very productive this year, and that members adapted well and rose to the occasion.
“It was a challenge and a great learning experience for everyone on council, and we did improve over the year. We aren’t perfect, but we learned to negotiate and compromise.”