Grad association aims for improved involvement
By Ryan Ozimek
After a quarter that saw the death of External Vice President
Jim Rowe, the creation of an initiative to freeze student fees and
the reintroduction of an affirmative action platform, the Graduate
Students Association (GSA) has hit full stride in revitalizing
graduate student government.
When President John Shapley, Internal Vice President Loc Nguyen,
and External Vice President Kevin Welner took office, each had
their own ideas as to what they’d like to see produced by this
year’s association.
During Shapley’s run for office last year, his campaign didn’t
put all its weight behind a single platform. Instead, he campaigned
on the idea of internally restructuring the association. More
specifically, Shapley simply wanted to connect the association with
the graduate student body.
"This year will be a great victory for me if we are able to
internally restructure GSA," Shapley said. "Although external
business is important to us, we’ve had to focus our strengths on
internal business needs."
Another point that Shapley hit on was outreaching to graduate
community. Throughout his tenure, Shapley stressed that graduate
students need to become informed in order to be involved in the
graduate association.
"I felt that GSA did a poor job in the past of connecting with
those graduate students outside the mainstream – the minority
students," Shapley said.
In order to reach graduate students that Shapley felt were
previously unrecognized by graduate student government, the
association began extending their hands to minority groups on
campus such as the Asian American Graduate Students Association and
the Latino American Students Association, among others.
Nguyen, too, saw increasing visibility as a priority for the
association. Although the student government has started in the
right direction, he felt that the graduate association really
hasn’t reached the visibility that it needs.
"There’s no easy solution or quick fix to the problem we are
facing," Nguyen said. "Things are starting to come together and
we’ve discussed many ideas on how to increase our visibility, but
right now we haven’t reached our goal."
Another problem that Shapley had with the association before he
took office was the organization’s attitude.
Shapley said, "I believed that the organization was stuck in its
conservative mode, and I wanted to give it a new direction."
Shapley soon drafted and presented a resolution that would make
the graduate association a pro-affirmative action organization.
This was approved and Shapley has since been able to represent the
graduate students in a pro-affirmative action light.
Many in the association believed that the recently passed
affirmative action resolution may become one of the major points
for graduate students to rally behind.
Others, such as Nguyen, do not see affirmative action greatly
increasing graduate student activity in GSA. One problem, he said,
is that graduate students are extremely focused on their certain
department or division. In addition, there has been only a slight
effect on graduate school affirmative action thus far.
"The regents’ action with SP-1 and SP-2 are directly focused on
undergraduate students and those employed by the UC system," Nguyen
said. "Nowhere does it talk about graduate students."
Nguyen does feel that the association needs to find a
controversial issue that affects all graduate students in order to
get a larger proportion of students involved in the graduate
government. One issue that he thought may serve that role is the
California Civil Rights Initiative. That ballot measure seeks to
ban affirmative action in California, and will probably appear on
the November 1996 ballot.
But, the problem here for the graduate association is that the
California Supreme Court ruled that student governments may not use
student fee money for political causes. The Smith v. Regents
decision, as it is known, may stop the association from making this
an on-campus issue.
Nguyen added that the association must ensure that graduate
students have a comfortable experience at UCLA. In order to do so,
he feels that the graduate government needs to extend its public
service arm, as well as increasing its visibility among graduate
students.
During their Wednesday evening meetings, Nguyen hopes to lead
the Graduate Students Association Forum into discussions concerning
the visibility of the association and how to get more graduate
students involved in the graduate government.
External Vice President Welner’s position requires him to focus
on the effects of legislation and political actions which influence
graduate students at UCLA. After filling the vacancy created by
Rowe’s death, Welner worked heavily on representing the graduate
student body on a statewide and national level.
He and a fellow graduate student at UC Berkeley are currently
working to place a measure on the November 1996 ballot which will
cover issues of importance to graduate students, such as student
fees.
Another issue that Welner has been working on concerns
meaningful changes in the way the university acts on community
service issues. He sees that the university presently has done many
good things in outreach, but still has a long way to go.
"I would like to see greater incentives for graduate students in
community outreach programs," Welner said. "A lot of students who
would want to help would only go to where there are
incentives."
An additional issue that Welner has faced through his term
concerns new faculty members. Today’s guidelines for rewarding
faculty members has been skewed, Welner feels, with a large amount
of compensation going towards research, and very little going for
teaching, community service and professional activities.Comments to
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