Our university will soon become the last in the University of California system to institute a diversity requirement. For students, this could mean taking more classes. For departments, this will mean more paperwork and even pressure on professors to teach classes they might not otherwise teach. In these respects, the requirement will have clear and […]
Author Archives: Garin Hovannisian
Redirect USAC: Vote out Students First!
Elections for UCLA’s Undergraduate Students Association Council are coming up. And though most students do not care, you certainly should because the future of our university is at stake. The incumbent slate, Students First!, a group of mainly “minority” students who want to change the world, has offered Allende Palma/Saracho as its candidate for president. […]
Intellectuals underestimate the masses
There is a widely accepted perception that college students are elitists and intellectual supremacists. On Monday, to prove or disprove this perception, I walked around UCLA and asked various groups of students: Do you think you are part of the masses? Of the 81 people I asked, 86 percent answered they did. The remaining 14 […]
Armenian Genocide reveals lessons for today
On April 24, Armenians around the world will commemorate the darkest period in their history. Through organized deportations and massacres of 1.5 million people, over half of the Armenian population was forcibly removed from its home of 3,000 years. The crimes began on April 24, 1915 and were continued by successive Turkish governments until 1923, […]
Important matters missing in Moore's debate
Last month, the University of California Board of Regents passed a resolution censuring its chairman, John Moores, for his public allegations that the university likely still uses race-based preferences in admissions. In doing so, the board censured free speech and suppressed knowledge of emerging problems in the UC system. The regents, news media and pundits […]
Group sacrifices principles for politics
Last weekend, I joined hundreds of students at UCLA to participate in a convention of the California College Republicans. Many in the crowd had flown or driven to our campus with the same zeal and ambitions of the stereotypical student activist. They yearned to discuss politics, advance ideas, and, yes, to change the world. At […]
Iraq war an act of self-defense aimed at peace
This week marks the one-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and provides a valuable opportunity to discuss the great successes and accompanying shortcomings of the current Gulf War. It must first be noted that weapons of mass destruction have not been found. This could mean one of four things: 1. They never really […]