By Evan D. Shulman
In Wednesday’s Daily Bruin review of undergraduate student government council member platforms (“USAC campaign promises evaluated,” News, April 22), the editors decided to assign graphical elements to the executive offices to simplify an entire year’s work into a three-color category.
And while I certainly applaud the efforts of my fellow executives in achieving full green lights, this color code does not fully reveal the tireless efforts of their staffs in bringing platforms to fruition, nor do they represent the efforts put in by myself and my staff members in the Office of the Internal Vice President.
As students and constituents of USAC, I would encourage you to do your own research and communicate with your representatives from all offices to expand beyond a one-article review of the year, and to learn about the numerous services and benefits provided by numerous work hours from numerous staff members that make up your student government.
A “red” light was supposed to stand for “no progress has been made,” yet the article failed to inform the readers about the meetings that were held with both the UCLA Housing Administration and the University Apartments regarding sustainability options and directions.
These discussions led the IVP Office to conduct a quarter-long research program, run by our external sustainability director, to do Housing’s work for them and determine any economic benefits of having students cut down on energy and water usage.
Last year, I said I would “advocate for green housing co-op,” fully understanding that a housing project would not go from paper to student-livable in a year; yet the IVP Office built the framework and foundation for pursuing that goal with hard data and by determining stakeholders.
The initial idea for a co-op still stands, but the idea behind it was to save students money by providing green housing.
The direction we went with our research would have enabled all residents to benefit financially from going green, not just the few that would get to live in cooperative housing.
Unfortunately, under evaluation, the Daily Bruin decided that “no progress” has been made only because we did not meet their tweaking of my platform in “creating eco-friendly housing options for students” at the end of Year One.
Ambitious programs call for ambitious time lines, and I am proud of the work my office has done to begin to lay the foundation for green housing in the future. Additionally, the Daily Bruin mis-paraphrased me in saying I was “waiting to see if the (recycling) program is feasible.”
It’s entirely feasible. It’s free and run by the City of Los Angeles. Our office is helping to get the word out to students about signing up for this free, already-planned-out-service, just as students are beginning to sign their leases to live in apartments off-campus.
If this free, fully operational service is something you’d like to have at your apartment building, in the spirit of our recently passed Earth Day, check out larecycles.org or council.usac.ucla.edu/ivp/sustainability to make it happen.
If you’d like to learn about the business, engineering, or Greek groups we connected through our liaison director’s NetPlay initiative, or about our moves to help USAC become green, our work to free up money over time for more student programming, or the numerous other ways the Office of the IVP has been a service to students this year, I encourage and welcome your discussion via e-mail at usaivp@asucla.ucla.edu.
Shulman is a fifth-year cognitive science student and the Undergraduate Students Association Council’s internal vice president.