Out of the five candidates running for the three available general representative spots, Bruins United candidate Monica Kohles presented the best ideas both in terms of creativity and feasibility.
Her platform, including revamping the housing section of bruinwalk.com to look similar to professor ratings and offering software certification opportunities to students through QuickStart Intelligence, shows a strong understanding of student government and the interworkings of UCLA overall.
Kohles has even put together an organized attack against rising textbook costs, suggesting to offer higher buyback rates to students in the form of vouchers only valid at ASUCLA textbook stores. This would not only help cut costs for students but motivate increased customer loyalty to on-campus resources, as opposed to cheaper Web sites and used-book stores.
Kohles firmly exemplifies one of the qualities we find most important in evaluating candidates: realistic goals. Kohles presented a number of new and unique ideas that are both tangible within the coming year and tangible within the USAC budget and bureaucratic limitations.
Kohles’ past experience, including her time spent as an orientation counselor and on the Academic Affairs Commission, only makes her platform seem that much more attainable if elected.
Similar to Kohles, fellow Bruins United candidate Joey Hernandez presented exciting ideas that simply built upon existing infrastructure. Specifically, Hernandez proposed increasing mental-health advocacy with participation from groups such as Student Psychological Services and the Center for Women and Men, among others. Again, like Kohles, Hernandez made his platform reasonable by suggesting USAC help fund these additional services to help such groups as SPS, which already have tight budgets.
Hernandez also addressed an important and long-gestating issue on campus with his commuter and transfer integration program with themed nights to cater directly to these commonly overlooked subsets of the UCLA student body.
Finally, we round out our recommendations for general representatives with James Birks of the Students First! slate. While Birks suggested increasing awareness of alternative medicine options such as massage and acupuncture, many of these are already available on campus. He also suggested bringing herbal remedies to campus through private companies, which he must be careful to prevent from becoming problematic and purely advertising-driven.
To his credit, Birks’ plan to foster communication between on and off-campus students by connecting themed floors on the Hill with related student groups would better engage students.
The other students running for general representative spots, Gilberto Chacon of Students First! and Natalie Gonzalez of Bruins United, both focused on lofty goals that they unfortunately could not support by having talked to student leaders and administration related to the respective proposals.
For example, Chacon proposed more events geared toward connecting the UCLA Greek community with the rest of the campus, but he had not discussed the idea with most major fraternities and sororities. Also he has little prior USAC experience to match his opponents.
Gonzalez showed the least preparation for her platform ideas, which include expanding the Blue Paw discount program for businesses in Westwood and working with the Office of Residential Life to hold the offices on campus more accountable financially as the cost to live in the dorms continues to rise. In both instances, Gonzalez failed to discuss the realistic tangibility of these undertakings, which makes them appear even further out of reach.
Kohles, Hernandez and Birks seem to not only have the most exciting new ideas, but they also appear the most ready to put their plans into action as 2008-2009 USAC general representatives.