Transfer student advocates and a member of the undergraduate student government created a petition Thursday to push for the creation of a new council position to represent transfer students.
If the petition gets 15 percent of the undergraduate student body’s signatures in coming weeks, undergraduate students will be able to vote to create the position during the Undergraduate Students Association Council’s spring elections.
The students want to amend the USAC constitution to create the position to ensure that someone on USAC is representing transfer students, said Nicole Fossier, an Internal Vice President’s Office student group liaison who helped create the petition.
“We wanted to have a centralized place where we can bring (transfer student) issues to light and advocate for them,” said Fossier, a fourth-year psychology and political science student and a board member for Bruin Alliance, one of the slates that ran candidates during the USAC election last year.
Transfer students make up about a third of UCLA’s undergraduate student population.
Fossier said she thinks USAC members should interact more with transfer students to better represent their interests.
Although UCLA offers some resources for transfer students, Randall Call, a member of the Transfer Student Task Force who helped create the petition, said he thinks it is difficult to find resources because UCLA does not have a transfer student center.
“We want to acknowledge this under-recognized and underrepresented population of students and give them a voice in student government,” said Call, a fourth-year sociology student who transferred to UCLA.
Joshua Baum, a third-year political science student and a staff intern in the External Vice President’s Office, said he recently became involved with the initiative because he thinks the current USAC political system is not suitable for transfer students, who are typically only given one opportunity to run and do not know as many people. He added he thought major USAC slates prefer members with multiple years of experience.
Fossier said a position needed to be created for transfer students because it would ensure that they remain a part of USAC.
The petition specifically calls for the representative to advocate for and support transfer students’ needs, which include academic, social and housing issues.
Fossier said the description is broad, so the representative will be able to address whatever happens in USAC year to year.
To pass, 20 percent of undergraduate students must vote in the election, and two-thirds of students who vote must vote in favor of the proposal. If it passes, a representative would be elected in a special election during Fall 2014.
Students can sign the petition in the Bruin Resource Center, which is located in the basement of the Student Activities Center.
Run transfers for Gen Rep. There. Problem solved.
Many transfers are not aware of what USAC is and/or that they are allowed to run. Not to mention the fact that within student government, and the university system in general, there is a bias toward traditional students who have been in the schools political system longer, making it virtually impossible for a transfer to get voted into a general rep position. Transfer students are here for a very short period of time and have a very unique set of needs. Student government and most student organizations do not generally reach out to transfers. Thus, it does not occur to many transfers that getting involved in these types of programs is an option for them –which may seem strange to traditional students but tends to be the norm for students who have come at their education in a more non-traditional way. There is a limited amount of time to get the lay of the land academically let alone socially or politically. The general rep positions lack a platform that would be consistent and targeted enough to have a major impact and create the shifts that are necessary to address this demographics unique set of needs. Transfers make up @ 30% of the population at UCLA and is growing –there is no centralized, institutionalized support for them. UCLA is the only UC without a transfer specific center, counselors, and student representation despite the fact that we have the largest population of transfers. Traditional students have two years to bounce around and figure the process and policies out, transfers do not have that luxury and yet most universities (ours specifically) are still set up in a traditional framework. We have incredible resources at UCLA, the reality is however, that these resources are dispersed and decentralized, each being run through different departments with no fluid communication between them. This reality ironically leave transfers on their own to bounce around until they figure it out –more often than not ending up finding out about all the opportunities in their senior year when it is really too late to get involved. The various transfer resources do not actively target all transfers, commuters specifically, and neither do student organizations. This leaves transfers, who sometimes already feel they are on the outside, in a more isolating situation with no institutionalized support to guide and welcome them into the Bruin family in the way that traditional students are. A transfer student specific rep is one of the many steps that is being taken to create a better framework for all students. So, while I appreciate your sentiment that a general rep could be a solution, it hasn’t been. A significant institutional modification has to be made. Non-traditional is the new traditional, Universities, ours included need to start making the appropriate shifts.