The Undergraduate Students Association Council is the official student government representing the undergraduate student body at UCLA. Council meetings take place every week on Tuesdays at 7 p.m. in Kerckhoff Hall 417 and are open to all students. Watch a live stream of the meeting on the USAC Live! Youtube Channel.
Agenda
- USAC approved allocating $6,200 of contingency programming funds to 24 student groups with a vote of 10-0-3.
- Allocation of the Cultural Affairs mini-fund to four organizations was approved with the council’s consent.
- The Student Wellness Programming Fund allocated $69 toward Bruin Transfer Day.
- Surplus from last year totaled $102,892.27. The council voted to invest $10,000 in endowment and modify the formula by which the remainder is disbursed so that at least $50,000 will go toward the contingency fund. About $5,000 will go to capital contingency and $37,000 to Undergraduate Students Association programming.
Special presentations
- Liz Palmer, member of the John Wooden Center board of directors, asked councilmembers to help publicize the Art Commission project to replace the art currently hanging in the John Wooden Center. The project is open to students, alumni, faculty, staff and members of the recreation facilities who can submit art of any medium. Submissions should follow the theme of campus life at UCLA and will open in February. People can advocate for current artwork they want to remain on display in the John Wooden Center through a survey.
- UC Student Regent Avi Oved gave councilmembers background on how the Board of Regents works, introduced his staff and let council know that the student regents will never support a tuition increase, for both in-state and out-of-state students. He and Student Regent Sadia Saifuddin will be visiting campus Feb. 4, meeting with certain student groups and hosting an open forum to help the student body understand the role of the student regents and address student concerns.
- Andy Tran, member of the student facilitation team of the Bruin Leaders Project, asked councilmembers to help publicize applications for LeaderShape, a six-day leadership conference in Malibu during spring break. The conference is run through UCLA Student Organizations, Leadership & Engagement and will be accepting 60 UCLA students.
- Gülnaz Kiper, the president of the Turkish Cultural Club, and Mark Bhaskar, a member of the Olive Tree Initiative at UCLA, made a special presentation against the resolution to divest from the Republic of Turkey. The pair made a historical and humanitarian argument against the resolution.
- President Avinoam Baral and Internal Vice President Heather Hourdequin made a special presentation on “Surplus, Sustainability and Student Success” in which they proposed to invest $10,000 of surplus funds in USAC endowment. Baral said that investing in endowment would give surplus funds more purchasing power in the future and help create a more consistent fund available to student groups that has fluctuated because of surplus instability in the past.
Officer reports
- Baral said that his office is looking for applicants for presidential appointments. He will be meeting with the UCLA administrative vice chancellor to discuss council initiatives and said that USAC needs more frequent meetings with the chancellor. He added that his office is working on reaching out to USAC alumni to set up a database, begin distributing a newsletter and organize a reunion at the end of the year. UC student government presidents are currently contemplating if they will remain on a UC joint advocacy committee that advocates student interests to the UC Regents now that the University of California Student Association has pulled out, he added.
- The IVP office is working on creating a common application for student funding sources to help student groups get the money they need, Hourdequin said. She added that the off-campus living fair was very successful with an attendance of about 2,000 students. Transfer Appreciation Day will be Tuesday, she said. Student group liaisons in her office have been promoting the Student Organizations Operational Fund application and reaching out to organizations with a how-to guide for the process, Hourdequin said.
- External Vice President Conrad Contreras said he attended an EVP conference this past weekend where UC external vice presidents passed a vote of no confidence in Janet Napolitano. He said the best way for students to advocate for themselves would be independent of regents or the University of California Office of the President. His office is working on inviting legislators to campus for a day in either week 8 or 9 so student groups and campaigns can lobby to them directly, he said.
- General Representative 1 Manjot Singh said his office is working on a genocide awareness photo and video campaign that will share the stories of people whose families have been affected by genocide. His office will continue to donate collected caps and gowns. The All of Us Mental Health Matters conference will happen Feb. 8, he added.
- Academic Affairs Commissioner Allyson Bach said her office added the preferred names option on MyUCLA by expressing student concerns to MyUCLA’s engineers. The Class Planning Advisory Board and MyUCLA engineers will be putting out a survey so that students can express other changes they’d like to see, she added. Undergraduate Student Initiated Education program is hosting its first workshop Sunday for prospective applicants, she said. The UCLA Academic Senate met Thursday and talked about possibly adding a diversity and inclusion question for TA and professor evaluations, Bach said.
- Student Wellness Commissioner Savannah Badalich said that Consent Week will be in week 3. Her office is working on a list of demands for Los Angeles Unified School District and California legislators about consent education and its absence in K-12 requirements, she added. There will be a “Positively Speaking” panel for AIDS awareness March 2 and “I Love My Body” week will be during week 7, she said. Badalich also distributed Student Wellness Commission materials.
- Transfer Student Representative Negeen Sadeghi-Movahed said that President Barack Obama’s initiative to make two years of community college free is a step in the right direction even though it does not account for all the costs implied by pursuing higher education.
- The administrative representatives said that UCLA has the largest number of students eligible to be in the Tau Sigma National Honor Society.
Compiled by Catherine Liberty Feliciano, Bruin contributor.