Tuesday, 4/15/97 Student groups meet to discuss common issues
USAC, SAA hope to build small initial turnout into thriving
cooperative network
By Stefanie Wong Daily Bruin Contributor Keeping lines of
communication open among almost 500 registered campus groups isn’t
always easy. But the Campus Interaction Forum aims to do just that.
At the first forum held April 8, representatives discussed issues
that the groups have in common, including a lack of resources,
declining student participation and programming. While
representatives of 200 groups were invited to the forum, only 10
chose to accept the invitation – a small turnout, but one that
organizers said shows promise for future events. Organized by the
internal vice president’s office of the Undergraduate Student
Association Council (USAC) and the public relations division of the
Student Alumni Association (SAA), the forum was an opportunity for
student groups to unite and discuss ways to help each other.
Overall, the forum emphasized that the problems and needs of each
individual group can be more easily solved through working as a
collective. "The point of the forum was campus unity, bringing
people together and making UCLA a fun place to be," said Cliff Jin,
campus outreach liaison for the SAA. The round-robin format allowed
groups of six students to discuss issues of communication,
networking, programming and resources, with two student presenters
in each area. Organizers deemed the forum a success because of the
knowledge students gained on how to make their programs more
effective. "The forum was successful. Although a majority of the
organizations did not show, those that did left with resources and
new contacts," Jin said. At the forum, Latin American Student
Association President Esmeralda Florez commented on how she
previously did not know about the resources that were available to
student organizations, a sentiment held by many of the other
participants. In fact, most participants believed that the forum
should become a regular event for student organizations to
communicate and interact with each other. "They were generally
favorable to the idea of meeting like this more often and at least
communicating and not assuming what the other felt," said USAC
Internal Vice President Glenn Inanaga. The idea of creating a
governing board with representatives from each of the student
groups to facilitate interclub communication has also been
considered. However, the notion of an interclub council is "tricky"
and it is difficult to make clubs come together, said Carol Lee,
the internal vice president’s chief of staff. USAC and SAA
officials are hoping that their joint program will be seen as an
example for other student organizations and encourage them to work
together, Lee said. The forum is the first cooperative activity
that the two groups have held in years, and one they hope defeats
the notion of USAC and SAA as being adversaries. "I think it’s a
good sign for the future of club interaction on campus if these two
groups can overlook their differences and do a joint project," Jin
said. Organizers do not expect the forum to be a catalyst for
immediate change between student groups, but they do believe that
the event will improve communication. "The organizations don’t have
to program together but just understand each other," Lee said. The
forum was "a long-needed first step towards achieving a more
unified campus through shared resources and better cross-cultural
awareness," said Secretary Wilson Chow of the Association of
Chinese Americans. Despite the low turnout, the organizers are
positive and believe that more student organizations will
participate in the future. "Every single program that we do has a
building period where we have to get these organizations to go to
the meetings," Inanaga said. "But once we actually build on the
actual program and build our lists of participants, the program
will then carry itself." External Links:
USAC
saa
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