Editorial: USAC’s questionable spending of excess money puts students on back burner

You would hope managing a multimillion-dollar budget would teach you a thing or two about fiscal responsibility. It’s only made the Undergraduate Students Association Council spendthrift, though. The council broke political and economic tradition Jan. 22 by refusing to tally the amount it wanted to spend in surplus funding, some of which went to student […]

Editorial: Lack of diversity in Geffen hiring process leads to lack of excellence

This post was updated Jan. 28 at 4:10 p.m. The only thing worse than a lack of commitment to diversity is a lack of commitment to looking diverse. The Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior is struggling to show even that. The acclaimed institute, which jointly conducts research and provides clinical services to Angelenos […]

Editorial: USAC’s poor outreach results in overdependence on student attendance

Representative democracies have a simple formula: Voters cast their ballots for candidates who represent their interests. Those representatives then make decisions aligning with the interests of their constituents. UCLA’s undergraduate student government seems intent on different calculus: Voters decide everything. This year’s Undergraduate Students Association Council has hardly been up to the task of making […]

Editorial: UCLA abandons investment in mental health care, leaves students to struggle alone

When students are welcomed to UCLA during orientation, they’re told to save the phone number for the university’s Counseling and Psychological Services center in case of emergencies. They’re reminded we need to continue destigmatizing mental illnesses. They’re reassured the university has trained counselors who can tend to their needs. What they aren’t told is limited […]

Editorial: Faculty EDI statement is half-baked solution for diversity, inclusion

UCLA’s diversity and inclusion strategy is inclusive of a lot of diverse ideas – even troublingly bad ones. Earlier this academic year, the university began requiring all prospective faculty hires to fill out an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion statement, which involves applicants mentioning their past, present and future contributions to diversity and equity, which are […]

Editorial: Regents should increase student representation, not create meaningless positions

When it comes to student representation, quality always trumps quantity. Especially when it comes to the University of California. The UC Board of Regents will vote this week on whether to terminate the position of student adviser to the regents. The regents created the position in 2016 following a push for more undergraduate student representation. […]

Editorial: UC challenges costly research publishing methods, fights for open access

The University of California’s motto may be “Fiat Lux”, but administrators have rallied behind a different line: Let there be knowledge. California’s premier research university system has been brawling since last year with Elsevier, a publishing giant, over open access to the company’s many journals. Research institutes rely heavily on journals to share findings and […]