As UC Irvine student Jesse Cheng prepares to start his duties as the 2010-11 student regent, the UC Board of Regents has nominated UC San Francisco graduate student Alfredo Mireles Jr. for the 2011-2012 Board.
“It is an honor and frankly, I am humbled,” Mireles Jr. said. “It is a tremendous opportunity to be the sole voice for students on the Board of Regents, and that is incredibly important to me.”
Mireles Jr., a health policy graduate student at UC San Francisco, has served as a member of the Student Health Insurance Advisory Committee and is currently working on a community service project as an Albert Schweitzer Fellow, helping mentally ill patients stay out of hospitals by giving them the resources they need to maintain their treatment.
Mireles Jr., a first-generation college graduate who got his first undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley, also received a bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins, where he was hired as a nurse. His main goals are reducing fees and improving campus climates, after a year defined by racial protests at UC Santa Barbara.
“As a newly selected student regent my focus is on making students of all backgrounds feel welcomed at the University of California, ensuring that the University of California remains accessible and affordable, and working to strengthen the University of California’s educational quality,” said Mireles Jr. in a statement from the Board of Regents.
On a more personal level, Mireles Jr. hopes to further promote the health projects that the Board has undertaken this year, specifically its attempt to reopen the Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital so the University of California can help the underprivileged community around UCLA.
After two rounds of interviews by the nominating committee ““ five Regents, including the current Student Regent Jesse Bernal ““ Mireles Jr. was selected from a pool of 54 applicants from across the UC system.
According to the official Board of Regents website, “the Student Regent is a voting member of the Regents of the University of California, attending all meetings of the Board and its Committees and serving a one-year term commencing July 1.”