Former USAC officer Avi Oved nominated to be 2015-2016 UC student regent

Outgoing UCLA student government leader Avi Oved has been nominated to be the 2015-2016 University of California student regent.

A committee of UC regents nominated Oved, outgoing internal vice president of the Undergraduate Students Association Council and a third-year economics student, to represent all students on the UC Board of Regents, the governing body of the University system. Oved was one of 38 students from nine UC campuses who applied for the position.

If Oved’s nomination is confirmed by the entire board at its July meeting as expected, he will serve as the non-voting student regent-designate on the board for the upcoming year alongside current student regent-designate Sadia Saifuddin, an undergraduate at UC Berkeley. Oved would then assume the voting student regent position when Saifuddin steps down for the 2015-2016 year.

“I’ve been involved in student government for a very long time now and although I love the work that I’ve done and the people I’ve worked with … I still feel like student government has in its capacity limitations, and student regent was the next step to the next level,” Oved said. “What is so fascinating about it is you have immediate access to the people, to the resources, to the entities within the UC and state legislators to really effect change across the UC system.”

As this year’s USAC internal vice president, Oved served as the main coordinator for UCLA student groups on the council and advocated for council transparency, including helping to institute live streaming of USAC meetings. He has also worked with student group 7000 in Solidarity to implement a Circle of 6 safety mobile application that would allow users to more quickly access six emergency contacts. In October, Oved authored a controversial resolution that supported a peaceful campus approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and investments in specific companies. Oved later said he was wrong in bringing the resolution to the table without consulting more students in the process.

As a regent, Oved said he would work to achieve three main platforms: adding more students to the UC regents board, help address sexual violence on campuses and reform the California Master Plan for Higher Education while engaging in lobbying and education advocacy.

Instead of having just one student regent and one student regent-designate on the current 26-member regents board, Oved said he wants to establish one undergraduate and one graduate student regent position, each with its own accompanying regent-designate position. If Oved’s proposal comes to fruition, there would be a total of four UC students on a 28-member regents board.

Oved said having more than two students on a board that speaks for about 240,000 students has been a proposal for years, with past student regents and members of the UC Student Association voicing support for it.

In addition to talking to past student regents about his proposal, he said he has heard support for it from current regents too, including UC President Janet Napolitano, regents Bonnie Reiss and Sherry Lansing and former UC President Mark Yudof.

“Hopefully this will tackle the issue of apathy on campuses,” Oved said. “Hopefully that in itself would push students to question what the Board of Regents does and how they govern the UC and see the value of having more student representation on the board.”

Oved said he would work to get the constitutional amendment necessary to amend the regents board’s composition on the 2016 state ballot.

In addition to getting more students on the regents board, Oved said he would work to further efforts for sexual violence prevention and awareness that have been powered by groups like UCLA’s 7000 in Solidarity campaign.

He said he also wants to make sure safety resources are made visible and available to students. He said he will work with existing student groups like 7000 in Solidarity to address the problem of underreporting of sexual assaults and make sure the UC is meeting its legal responsibilities in addressing sexual assault cases.

Finally, Oved said he wants to work to reform the 1960 California Master Plan, which provides guidelines for state universities to make it possible for all students to attend some form of higher education. The plan also sets numbers for university admission selections.

Like many state higher education officials, including Napolitano, Oved said the plan needs to be reformed to accommodate for changes to higher education since the plan was written in 1960, including the increase of technology, growing diversity of the state and gradual decline in state support for higher education.

Oved said he also wants to improve the student regent’s connections to the two other arms of the higher education system, the California State University system and community colleges. He said doing so would help students and the UC increase access to the University for students from underserved communities and lobby for issues like an oil severance tax, loan programs for undocumented students and reform of the property tax measure, Proposition 13.

When he takes office, Oved said he would first work to not be just a “figurehead,” but work “on the ground” with students when he’s selected. He said he would visit two UC campuses every month and meet with student groups, faculty and chancellors to learn what issues each campus is focused on.

Oved, who is Jewish, added that he looks forward to working with current student regent–designate Saifuddin, the first Muslim to be chosen for the position, whom he has spoken with several times already and intends to meet in the summer to lay out plans for the year.

“We’re both active in student government, and we champion different stances on certain issues,” Oved said in a UC release. “It’s a beautiful statement on behalf of UC to have a Muslim and a Jewish student working together, regardless of political or cultural differences, in order to improve higher education. I hope this serves as an example for communities on campus that they can focus on the similarities between one another rather than their differences.”

 

Compiled by Kristen Taketa, Bruin senior staff.