The Division of Undergraduate Education has determined that our jobs are an expendable and unnecessary student service.
Who are we? We are peer learning facilitators and supervisors at Covel Peer Learning Labs, the campus’s only free student support service for all undergraduates in math/science coursework and writing.
As undergraduates who help undergraduates, it is our goal to create a community of thoughtful and independent learners in a collaborative learning environment. We have been a part of the UCLA campus for more than 20 years.
UCLA recently announced our closure for the 2011-2012 academic year in the name of “restructuring” academic support services. However, no contingency plan exists to “restructure” this kind of academic support and continue our services for the upcoming school year.
Without Covel Peer Learning Labs, UCLA will be one of the only UC campuses that does not provide free learning support to its general undergraduate population. Administrators, do you really want to admit this to prospective students, nervous to enter a large institution?
This decision to close the Covel Peer Learning services negatively affects several populations on our campus.
It is perhaps obvious why the students who use Covel Peer Learning Labs will be affected by this decision. In the 2009-2010 academic year, approximately 3,000 students were served per quarter.
Every year, there are students who want math/science assistance but who are not able to enroll given the high demand. The Composition/ESL Lab has become an especially large support network for international students, a population which is only growing at UCLA.
The 120 students who work at Covel become empowered communicators.
Peer learning facilitators also provide a personalized group discussion that many UCLA students never experience in large lecture courses.
Professors and graduate students, too, benefit from their students attending peer learning sessions. Developed collaborative learning and academic leadership skills hold immense educational value in and out of the classroom.
If you see the power of peer learning and would like to help our cause, please send a letter to the vice provost of undergraduate education, Judith Smith, expressing your dissatisfaction.
Even if Covel Peer Learning Labs is not operational given the current budget crisis, we propose reducing our lab’s budget or at least creating a contingency plan to ensure that our services may still be provided to students.
UCLA students deserve better than to be ignored like this. Perhaps more importantly, future Bruins deserve better than this.
The Covel Peer Learning Supervisors
Peter Lammé, Elida Ledesma, Lucas Meza, Cindy Nguyen,
Jenae Cohn (former Daily Bruin reporter)