Aram Ghoogasian: USAC should take concrete steps to establish on-campus prayer space

Student government resolutions can’t enact change on their own. The effort that sometimes succeeds their passage, however, can. At the Tuesday Undergraduate Students Association Council meeting, the USAC General Representative 1 office will introduce a resolution in the hopes of establishing an on-campus space dedicated to prayer and meditation. The discussion shouldn’t take very long […]

Aram Ghoogasian: Gender discrimination toward USAC leadership still prevalent

Male student government candidates usually don’t have to think twice about their safety while campaigning. Female candidates, on the other hand, face harassment on a regular basis. USC recently made headlines after it elected its first female student body president in about a decade. Its student government had not even seen a woman make a […]

Aram Ghoogasian: Diversity vice chancellor position must prioritize students

When students try to communicate with school administrators, their grievances often fall on deaf ears. The appointment of a new administrator, however, has a chance to initiate a paradigm shift. The search for UCLA’s first vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion will approach its end next quarter. So far, three candidates have visited campus […]

Aram Ghoogasian: Slates must enforce inclusiveness of open application process

It’s one thing to say a process is inclusive. It’s another to make it so. The latter is going be the difficult part for the Undergraduate Students Association Council as May elections approach. The two most prominent UCLA undergraduate student government slates, Bruins United and LET’S ACT!, recently released applications for those looking to run […]

Aram Ghoogasian: UC must increase transparency by fully disclosing finances to workers

The University of California isn’t very good at making friends. Over the course of a little more than a year, the UC has managed to antagonize both its teaching assistants and its service workers. Now it’s the doctors’ turn. Last week, doctors staged a strike across the UC in protest of the University’s unfair labor […]

Aram Ghoogasian: Bruin Republicans’ diversity requirement protest gains little support

It’s often said that a small, dedicated group of people can make a large impact. Last week’s protest by 10 members of Bruin Republicans was not one of those times. The organization staged a protest last week against UCLA’s new general education requirement, which would have students take a course about inequalities based on race, […]

Aram Ghoogasian: USAC must be ethically consistent in Turkey divestment vote

One hundred years ago, my great-grandfather, a 9-year-old at the time, faced extermination at the hands of the Ottoman Empire because of his ethnicity. Today, the Republic of Turkey categorically denies that its predecessor state committed genocide against the Armenian people. Denial of genocide itself has been called the final stage of genocide. This state-sanctioned […]