Last year, undergraduate student government led UCLA’s Get
Out the Vote campaign, made progress on making nighttime and
outdoor programming possible and failed to repeal the expected
cumulative progress requirement.
For the coming year, Undergraduate Students Association Council
plans to serve and advocate for students by collectively focusing
on shared governance, campus safety, sustainability, strengthening
the campus community, and providing for student well-being in the
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered community.
At least half of USAC’s 13 offices have committed to each
concentration for the year, with plans for programming, advocacy,
and providing resources that will further the aims of each
goal.
Shared governance, which involves realizing greater student
representation on all campus advisory and decision-making bodies,
would create more student voice and student votes on the types of
committees that decide such policies.
“We have no real vote, no real power,” said General
Representative Brian Neesby.
“Our ultimate goal would be to get a vote on every
committee that concerns students, ideally multiple
votes.”
Neesby became an advocate for shared governance after
transferring to UCLA. Shared governance is institutionalized into
the California community colleges by law, and Neesby said he was
shocked that UC system didn’t have anything comparable.
“I think in negotiating with the administration, we need
that voice and that power,” he said.
However, gaining support among the administration for further
student power on campus bodies may be difficult, Neesby admits.
In the early 1990s a student push for shared governance gained
additional representation on various committees, but students have
since lost their votes on many of these bodies.
In light of this past summer’s string of armed robberies
in Westwood, campus safety is an issue that councilmembers say has
not received enough attention, especially as the student
populations both on campus and in Westwood continue to
increase.
“We haven’t been addressing it as we should, and
safety is a need that is always there,” said Student Welfare
Commissioner Tracy Pham.
Much of council’s campus safety efforts will involve
promotional and educational campaigns to teach students basic
safety techniques against common avoidable crimes, such as laptop
theft.
Other campus safety objectives include the installation of a
crosswalk on Gayley Avenue at Landfair Avenue and increased
accessibility to services such as the nighttime escorts offered by
the Community Service Officer program.
In addition to teaching students how to protect themselves and
their belongings, council also wants to show them how to protect
the environment through its attention to sustainability.
Facilities commissioner Joe Vardner said that students making a
concerted effort towards energy conservation is crucial because the
current generation of college students will likely see huge changes
in the way energy is created and used in the coming years, and now
is the time to change their habits.
“I think everyone’s on the same page that we are,
during our lifetime, going to see fossil fuels become extremely
rare and seldom used,” Vardner said.
Sustainability is also a wise focus for the university as it
continues to weather the effects of the budget crisis, he
added.
“The Regents are not letting UCLA borrow as much money as
we want for the campus, so we need to figure out how to save money.
Saving money means efficiency, and sustainability is all about
efficiency,” Vardner said.
Much of the sustainability campaign will be educational,
teaching students and student groups about what they call
“sensitive sustainability.”
“It’s getting people to realize that it’s a
bigger issue than just consumption,” Vardner said.
Councilmembers say the need to advocate and provide services for
the LGBT community is also a particularly pressing matter now,
after the LGBT Center was vandalized twice and three LGBT students
committed suicide last year.
Goals include expanding LGBT sensitivity trainings for student
groups and Ashe Center employees, establishing more gender neutral
bathrooms on campus for transgendered students, and implementing
policies that will increase the comfort and safety of LGBT students
living in on-campus housing, such as including an LGBT sensitivity
question on housing forms.
“I believe every student deserves to have a safe space on
this campus, to grow and figure out what to do with their
life,” said General Representative P.C. Zai.
But their most ambitious goal within LGBT advocacy is not
integration and inclusion, but acceptance, which requires bridging
the gap between the LGBT community and those on campus that
traditionally have not been accepting of LGBT students, Zai
said.
Council also hopes to find ways for all students to get involved
with LGBT students.
While the various LGBT groups on campus organize and interact
well with each other, it’s difficult for LGBT allies to get
involved, Zai said.
USAC also hopes to promote events this year that will bolster
UCLA’s sense of campus community, making new students feel
welcome and included as well as trying to bring alumni back to the
campus for traditional events.
As UCLA has evolved as a community, the need for student
programming has changed, and more nighttime and weekend activities
and events need to be provided for students, said General
Representative Marwa Kaisey.
“We’re not a commuter campus anymore, we’re a
residential campus, and USAC is hoping to fill that void,”
Kaisey said.
Council will also be working on the Get Out the Vote Campaign
and increasingly financial aid availability on a smaller scale.
This year’s Get Out the Vote campaign will center around
California’s Nov. 8 special election. Concrete objectives
include registering at least 5,000 new student voters, as well as
educating students about the initiatives to make them more informed
voters. Council also plans to focus efforts on financial aid in the
current climate of increasing student fees and decreasing
availability of aid.