President: Homaira Hosseini

Homaira Hosseini is a thoughtful, charismatic and knowledgeable leader. She is the clear choice for undergraduate student body president.

Hosseini’s platform items are ambitious but well-conceived, feasible and focused on making UCLA a better place.

She demonstrates a desire to work on behalf of all students to lobby against fee increases ““ but more importantly she shows a willingness to step out of the box and engage the UC Office of the President, the UC Board of Regents and graduate students, in that lobbying effort.

Combining forces with other concerned constituents in the University of California to lobby on behalf of the entire university is clearly a path to better results, and her experience working in the UC Office of the President will likely help her.

The editorial board also likes her idea to provide payment plans for students who cannot afford to pay all of their fees all at once each quarter. It is an innovative and effective method of reducing the financial burden of a UCLA education that does not rely on lowering fees and has already been implemented at UC Riverside and UC San Diego.

Hosseini recognized that student fees will very likely increase this year, and she said she would work with the university to decide how to spend that money to best affect students as well as how to distribute the state budget cuts in a way that would minimally impact student life.

In several areas Hosseini expressed an interest in working with outside entities, such as the city council, to achieve her goals for this campus. She also showed an honest ability to compromise to achieve her plans, which is an important trait in any leader.

The board also likes the idea of a “state of the university” address where Hosseini would explain USAC’s progress toward all of its goals. It is a concrete step toward increasing student knowledge about student government.

Hosseini also demonstrated a clear understanding of how UCLA could invest its money in green businesses and still receive the same return rate ““ a large step in the right direction if the university is indeed serious about having a greener campus.

This board did not endorse Matt Sandler because we were largely uninspired by his ideas. He wants to work with Associated Students UCLA to expand Ackerman Union to house the administrators currently in Kerckhoff Hall.

Such a plan would undoubtedly expand office space for student groups in Kerckhoff, but Sandler admitted that the idea was not his own, would never come to fruition while he was president and would require a student fee increase over the next 30 years. Certainly this is a project ASUCLA should take on, but it hardly belongs on Sandler’s platform.

Sandler was also unable to satisfactorily answer questions from the editorial board about how he would reach out to the campus community to make sure students were aware of the many positions USAC appoints around campus. His ideas for educating the student body about student government were nebulous at best, simply focusing on “getting out of Kerckhoff.”

We did like Sandler’s ideas about “applied academics,” or working with departments to have more real-world course offerings, but it is simply not enough to elect him.

The independent candidate, Jeff Matt, failed to submit his platform summary to this board for consideration then failed to attend his interview. For these reasons he was not considered in our endorsement process.

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