It’s election time at UCLA, and students are quickly reverting back from being officers of student government to being representatives of their opposing slates.
The Undergraduate Students Association Council is comprised of 13 offices that are largely filled with students from either of the two political parties on campus, Students First! and Bruins United.
Already, Students First! has filed a complaint that Bruins United released two campaign videos before they were allowed.
After a year of promoting collaboration across all 13 offices, the increasing polarization between slates during election time concerns me. Slates should be careful not to allow a tense election season get in the way of future teamwork.
The ideas behind USAC-wide collaboration are obvious ““ it increases communication while combining individual resources with others. Student government is important because it gives a voice to students, sponsors campus events and advocates for student interests.
The mission for each office to collaborate started with a survey over the summer that asked for student feedback. Seeing that not enough students were fully aware of USAC and its actions, they created the Ask USAC Table for different offices to promote the efforts of student government every week on Bruin Walk.
In October, USAC put together John Wooden Day, when every office collaborated on one event for the first time, according to current USAC president Jasmine Hill. After the event, USAC determined there was a need for a general fund to enable future events sponsored by the entire student government, Hill said. The council currently presides over the fund and must vote in order to allocate the funds.
Since John Wooden Day, the fund has not been used for further all-USAC projects. Instead, it has been used to contribute toward funding office-specific projects like Ally Week, which celebrated the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, and Can You Hear Us Now?, which sponsored a downtown concert promoting the importance of higher education.
In effect, this fund has been underutilized for its initial purpose. No event has been held collectively by all offices of USAC since last October, and the USAC table is a rather passive means of engaging. Candidates should emphasize all-USAC projects for next year. These events carry the support of 13 offices, thereby making them well-publicized and feasible, and the general consent of every office ensures that all interests are represented fully.
Next year, the council should appoint an officer to maintain the general fund while keeping the voting system for allocating the money. This single officer should have the sole responsibility of eliciting USAC collaboration so that the council can hold bigger events such as John Wooden Day that would in effect be better publicized and funded.
With more careful planning for next year, USAC can continue to combine offices together and have bigger events and fewer small, less-publicized events. This could include a goal for one large event per quarter that the council could promote as a whole and divide responsibility so that each office can promote the council as a whole.
Collaboration is key once in office, and candidates should not forget this while they are campaigning. Working across offices means working across slates. Once students are elected, their slates should really have no relevance in student governing. Holding all-USAC events will only decrease the relevance of the slates because officers are functioning without party identities.
Berky Nelson, the director for student programming, said the normal problems of slate division have been benign throughout this year’s council, and differences between Bruins United and Students First! have been basically nonexistent.
This unity should not leave with this year’s council.
I commend the offices of USAC for setting a foundation for future collaboration that exceeds any slate nonsense, and I hope slate identification does not dominate candidate visibility.
There may be no “I” in “team,” but next year’s council should ensure that there is an “US” in USAC.
Would you like to see more USAC-wide projects? E-mail Ugarte at rugarte@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to opinion@media.ucla.edu.