If you or I received a base pay increase after going seven years without one, it likely wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. But university administrators aren’t paid like you and me. Although state funding and the price of education have been moving at inversely proportional rates, the University of California Board of Regents decided earlier […]
Author Archives: Aram Ghoogasian
Aram Ghoogasian: Student government officials must use social media cautiously
This year’s Undergraduate Students Association Council internal vice president has inherited more than a title from his predecessor – he’s taken on a share of the controversy, too. In the wake of a scandal involving last year’s IVP and current University of California student regent-designate Avi Oved, Avinoam Baral has found himself in his own […]
Aram Ghoogasian: Controversy surrounding food trucks in Westwood overblown
You’d be hard pressed to find people on the street that have problems with food trucks, but apparently a few small business owners aren’t too fond of them. An empty lot on Gayley Avenue, which has gone unused for several years, is now being used as a parking lot for food trucks, adding to the […]
Aram Ghoogasian: Beautiful game of soccer made ugly by racism at World Cup
Something has been gnawing at me about the latest installment of the World Cup and it isn’t Luis Suárez: It’s racism. The ugliness of the “beautiful game” is no secret. Soccer and racism have become almost synonymous on the international stage. Just ask Italy’s Mario Balotelli. The idea of the World Cup as a unifying […]
Aram Ghoogasian: Transfer student should fill representative seat
It’s an idea that’s well understood and largely accepted in most college campus discourse: Underserved communities understand their own experience better than other people do. It doesn’t make sense to put a man at the head of a women’s rights movement. It doesn’t make sense to tell other people’s stories as though they’re your own. […]
Aram Ghoogasian: Appointment process needs balance
The system of checks and balances is a concept we’re taught in middle school and yet our student government doesn’t seem to have a firm grasp on what it really means. As it stands, the president of the Undergraduate Students Association Council has almost absolute power to make about 70 appointments to several campus committees […]
Aram Ghoogasian: Council’s unity, success now in hands of new executives
Next year’s council has a useful example of how to improve the atmosphere of student government – the current council’s term has been characterized by repeated conflicts along slate lines, a problem that the next council has a responsibility to solve.