Daily Bruin – Page 18

Editorial: UCLA’s lack of transparency on Heaps’ allegations endangers campus community

Another day, another disgraced UCLA employee.

And the same tight-lipped university.

James Heaps, a former obstetrician-gynecologist at UCLA Health, was charged June 10 with sexual battery for his treatment of two patients in 2017 and 2018, to which he pleaded not guilty. A 2018 university investigation found that at least four patients made allegations against Heaps, and as of June 18, at least 22 other women have come forward alleging that Heaps sexually assaulted them during his employment at UCLA.

Chancellor Gene Block announced Heaps’ arrest and UCLA’s plans to review policies regarding sexual misconduct at clinical sites in a campus-wide email on June 10.

Block’s statement is a step up from UCLA’s previous lackluster responses to sexual assault cases.

But the bar for transparency should never be set so low.

UCLA knew about Heaps’ wrongdoings for more than a year, yet only broke its silence when he was legally charged and arrested – leaving the campus community in the dark. Beyond the clear lack of transparency, UCLA failed to implement adequate measures to protect patients, such as removing Heaps from campus while he was under investigation, which UC policy would have allowed.

Instead, the university let him continue to treat patients, who were unaware their doctor was an alleged sex offender. UCLA actively compromised its students’ and patients’ safety, leaving them vulnerable to sexual violence for six months.

And that’s exactly what happened.

A patient who saw Heaps in February 2018 – while he was still under investigation – filed a complaint nine months later alleging inappropriate sexual behavior from him during her appointment, according to prosecutors.

Communication in these cases is more than a formality – what the university does or doesn’t say directly affects the wellbeing of individuals on campus.

Block said in an interview with the LA Times that UCLA did not disclose the allegations against Heaps because the university wanted to wait until it had the full facts before making such a serious announcement. But UCLA remained silent even after it had completed its investigation into Heaps and found significant violations of UC sexual misconduct policies – making it hard to believe open communication was ever their top priority.

Informing the campus only when they couldn’t keep it under wraps any longer continues a pattern of deep-seated issues between the administration and the community it serves.

While most employers don’t automatically disclose when they report someone to law enforcement, UCLA has a responsibility to do so.

In fact, the federal Clery Act requires universities to inform those on campus about individuals accused of sexual assault if campus officials deem them to be a threat to the community. The U.S. Department of Education released a report earlier this year that Michigan State University violated the Clery Act by failing to warn its campus about former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar after student-athletes alleged he had sexually abused them.

And it’s safe to say that Heaps was a genuine threat – the university felt the need to terminate him and report him to the Medical Board of California twice in June 2018 and March 2019, respectively.

Block said in his email that the university’s first and highest obligation is to the communities it serves.

But as long as it stays tight-lipped, those communities will continue to suffer.

The Centennial Campaign has created a brand for UCLA that strays far from reality

Light shows on Royce Hall, enormous fundraisers and fancy graduation sashes marked UCLA’s 100 year celebration, as it made the promise of “Lighting the Way” for generations to come.

But with the spotlight on the Centennial Campaign, everyone else was left in the dark.

The Centennial Campaign is a fundraising effort meant to celebrate 100 years since UCLA’s establishment. So far, the university has raised $4.7 billion in donations, surpassing their $4.2 billion goal.

The campaign’s efforts to market the university have leaned heavily on the success stories of UCLA’s research and athletics milestones. Whether it be basketball players turned social justice advocates, or UCLA researchers who have developed new ways to treat spinal cord injuries – the Centennial Campaign has worked not only to show donors just how successful the university is, but more importantly, how deserving it is of their money.

But this success is not just the work of the institution.

UCLA’s greatest achievements are the work of students, student athletes and faculty – all of whom face injustices that go ignored by the administration for the sake of creating a positive brand. While UCLA’s administration boasts its athletics programs, it disregards student athletes. It pushes for research publications, but undermines faculty well-being. For students and faculty, the university is more than just the name brand and logos plastered on Centennial merchandise – it is their education and livelihood.

But if it means more money, UCLA seems to forget that rather quickly.

The Centennial celebration has only widened the gap between UCLA’s goals and its reality. Meanwhile, the cultivated image of national excellence strays further from the students and faculty that are central to maintaining that image.

Katherine Alvarado, a UCLA spokesperson, said the campaign administrators are focused on highlighting the role of donations in what is possible for the university.

“The campaign shows us snapshots of UCLA’s first century and UCLA today and provides a window into all that is possible for UCLA’s future, particularly with the help of philanthropic support,” Alvarado said.

Right now, however, the possibilities seem grim.

UCLA boasts 118 NCAA titles and pays its coaches millions of dollars to increase that number. But a report on the academic progress rates of athletes put UCLA at the bottom for schools in the Pac-12, while the UCLA men’s basketball team narrowly escaped penalties for low academic performance.

It is apparent that this continued success in athletics comes at the expense of the academic well-being of the student-athletes that bring home these championships – while athletes’ GPAs plummet, UCLA’s profits skyrocket. Student athletes are a cash cow at the hands of the university’s lofty NCAA goals, and the repercussions are wide reaching – from academics, to mental and physical health.

The recent lawsuit against former football coach Jim Mora by three former football players for alleged neglect and severe injury unearths a culture where wins come before well-being.

And athletes are not the only ones affected by the university’s neglect.

The Centennial Campaign favors promoting UCLA as a top research institution driven by the genius of a dedicated faculty. Yet that genius is often smothered by an administration happy to take advantage of their work.

There is an increasing number of lecturers in relation to tenured professors at UCLA. Lecturers are expected to teach classes and conduct research, but their short-term contracts exclude them from the job security, pay and benefits that tenured professors enjoy.

Saba Soomekh, a UCLA lecturer in the comparative literature and history departments, said that UCLA’s increasing number of lecturers in relation to full professors does a disservice to the lecturers expected to fill these roles.

“They are not giving people a living wage,” Soomekh said. “You are running around, often between campuses, and you don’t have time to do your own academic research – you are literally living class to class.”

Despite the Centennial Campaign highlighting major research milestones, the university continues to neglect those whose work made the achievements possible.

Soomekha said that by hiring lecturers on short-term contracts with a low number of classes, UCLA is also hurting undergraduates’ education.

“You can’t fully invest in the students, the campus and your department,” Soomekha said. “I can’t write a good letter of recommendation for a student I had for one class, one quarter – these contracts hurt the students as well.”

For the university, reform isn’t the priority – publicity is. But UCLA doesn’t want to talk about its ugly current state of affairs.

UCLA is not wrong to raise money – donations and funding have the capacity to greatly benefit student and faculty well-being in the form of new programs, services and support. But while UCLA profits from the accomplishments of individuals on its campus, it fails to give back to them once the campaigning is over. In order to help the people that make UCLA the best public university in the nation, donations must be reinvested in those individuals and the programs that affect them.

Students and faculty are the backbone of UCLA, but they are continuously treated like an afterthought. Until that changes, the Centennial Campaign is not lighting the way.

It is merely a distraction from the darkness around it.

USAC, GSA call for greater transparency following Heaps investigation

UCLA took over a year to notify students of the investigation of a former doctor accused of sexual battery.

University officials sent a campuswide email June 10 regarding the arrest of James Heaps, a former UCLA Health obstetrician and gynecologist. Undergraduate Student Association Council President Robert Watson said he felt the fact that students were not immediately informed of the Title IX investigation may have put students in danger.

“Students didn’t know about it until maybe a month ago, which is not only, I think, a threat of safety, but also just doesn’t really show a lot of accountability and transparency behind these accusations,” Watson said.

In December 2017, UCLA launched a Title IX investigation after receiving a complaint of inappropriate touching and comments made by Heaps toward patients, said David Olmos, a UCLA Health spokesperson, in an email statement.

Heaps’ arrest came about a year and a half after UCLA began investigating him.

Heaps pled not guilty to two counts of sexual battery and one count of sexual exploitation by a physician. The initial investigation led to the discovery of two other complaints against Heaps from 2014 and 2015.

The 2015 complaint stemmed from an anonymous Yelp review about 2008 events, Olmos said. The review alleged that Heaps had sexually assaulted the person who posted the comment while they were a UCLA student.

UCLA Health notified Heaps on April 25, 2018 that his employment would end.

Heaps has not practiced at the what is now known as the Arthur Ashe Student Health and Wellness Center since 2010, Olmos said. Prior to that, Heaps was a part-time consulting physician starting in 1983.

In May 2018, the Title IX office referred the case to medical staff to assess whether Heaps’ treatment was medically appropriate.

“The results of that initial investigation were not concluded due to a need for clarification as to the medical appropriateness of Heaps’ practice,” Olmos said.

That investigation was concluded some time after his termination, but Olmos did not give a specific date for the end of the investigation.

Heaps was removed from clinical practice and placed on paid investigative leave June 14, 2018, after an investigation substantiated allegations of billing irregularities and violation of the UCLA Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment policy, Olmos said. The leave was paid, as required under the University’s academic personnel policies, Olmos added.

“We reported him to the Medical Board of California, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ Office of Inspector General, and law enforcement,” Olmos said. “We also informed Dr. Heaps that his employment was being terminated, after which he announced he was retiring.”

Olmos said UCLA Health learned of a fourth patient complaint about 2018 events after Heaps was no longer employed.

Since his arrest, at least 22 women have come forward against Heaps, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Student government officials from UCLA and USC, who collectively represent over 93,000 students, released a joint statement calling for more transparency.

“As we approach a new school year, both institutions have an extraordinary opportunity to rethink health approaches and reshape workplace culture,” the joint statement said. “They also have a necessary obligation to protect the integrity, well-being, and safety of all students; we call for this to be the top priority for all campus departments at USC and UCLA.”

Watson said Chancellor Gene Block has not addressed the matter with USAC directly. Watson added he would like administrators to communicate more with USAC in regards to matters concerning student safety and well-being, such as the Heaps investigation.

Watson said he thinks the way UCLA handled communication about this case resembled the way UCLA handled communication regarding former professor Thomas Denove, who was arraigned for charges of sexual assault of minors one month before he retired from UCLA. The university did not notify students of the charges brought against Denove.

“We just don’t know … whether it’s a professor, whether it’s a health practitioner, until they’ve already been interacting with students, seeing more students after these allegations, we just don’t know about it,” Watson said.

Watson said he understands there are privacy regulations regarding the communication of personnel matters and investigations. However, he said he thinks students should be informed due to the gravity of the accusations.

“It seems like for accusations that are as serious as these, that the student body or students that have the potential to interact with these individuals should be made aware that there is some sort of ongoing conduct investigation,” Watson said.

Under the Clery Act, universities are required to immediately notify the campus community upon the confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to the health or safety of students or employees on the campus.

Graduate Students Association President Zak Fisher said he thinks students should be able to publicly voice their concerns to administrators regarding the Heaps investigation.

“I understand and respect that there are ongoing legal proceedings that limit our capacities to prudently speak on any individual case, but there is consensus among graduate students that Chancellor Block’s administration lacks fundamental transparency, including and perhaps especially when it comes to very serious issues like sexual assault,” Fisher said.

The preliminary hearing for the charges against Heaps will take place Wednesday at the Airport Courthouse.

UCLA lecturer writes short story collection especially pertinent to young Asians

An introductory computer science textbook inspired a story about algorithmically approaching father-daughter relationships.

After numerous drafts, the short story became one of 12 in UCLA lecturer Xuan Juliana Wang’s book “Home Remedies: Stories,” which was published May 14. The collection is organized into three sections – family, love, and time and space – and explores experiences, such as feeling lost, pertinent to young Asians in both the United States and China.

Through her book, Wang said she hopes to demonstrate that young Chinese people have stories worth sharing in contemporary English literature.

“I don’t want to make immigrants or diaspora or this immigrant experience an ‘other’ experience – some racialized, politicized experience that should be studied for its historical implications,” Wang said. “I just want to show that these people are complicated and funny and interesting.”

Growing up watching TV, Wang said she particularly enjoyed pharmaceutical commercials, which eventually led her to create the title for her book. She was drawn to the gentle tone of the narrator’s voice and how they provided a simple solution in the form of a pill for a myriad of problems. She used a similar tone when writing the title story “Home Remedies for Non-Life-Threatening Ailments,” she said, using imperative sentences to tenderly guide the reader.

Similar to how pharmaceutical commercials do not provide solutions to common problems, such as grief and self-doubt, Wang said she likewise will not include specific answers in her stories. However, she said the stories can potentially act as a starting point for readers to begin resolving issues.

“When you’re trying to untangle a necklace or headphone, when you pull really hard on both ends, it’s just never going to come apart. But there’s something about reading,” Wang said. “You’re massaging the knots and they loosen up. Maybe one day you’ll be able to untangle them.”

For the story “Algorithmic Problem Solving For Father-Daughter Relationships,” Wang said she was inspired by an undergraduate computer science course at Columbia University, which she took in the hopes of unlocking hidden potential as an engineer.

Despite not performing well in the class, Wang said she fell in love with her textbook, specifically how it broke down problems and tried to solve them algorithmically. When writing her book, she used pseudo-code and instructional sentences to explore the various people in her life that were emotionally unavailable to her, she said.

In her early 20s, Wang said she moved to Beijing for two-and-a-half years, which played a vital role in developing her imagination. As a result, her stories reflect a modern Beijing, said English professor King-Kok Cheung, especially in the story “Days of Being Mild.” She captures the lifestyle through an accurate portrayal of “young” music and current social issues, such as LGBTQ relationships in a homophobic China, Cheung said.

“(The story is) about contemporary Beijing, about the hip, young-people scene,” Cheung said. “These are the kinds of scene that writers like Ha Jin and Yiyun Lee, who had left China quite early, cannot capture.”

For another short story, Wang found inspiration while working as an interpreter for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, she said. She uncovered a hidden story that led her to write “Vaulting the Sea,” which details a love story between two Chinese synchronized divers. Wang said she watched the two divers do an interview during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and though the interview was muted, she noticed the divers’ body language, indicating a potential romantic interest.

Unlike older Chinese writers like Yiyun Lee, who have influenced Wang, Wang’s book contains plenty of humor, said Justin Torres, an English assistant professor and Wang’s colleague. For instance, in the titular story, the diseases are not fatal and range from depression to simply being stood up by a boyfriend, said Cheung. Regardless of the severity of the disease, there is still a home remedy for it, Cheung said.

Born in China and raised in the States, Wang wrote stories that take place in both China and the U.S., making her book especially relevant today, Torres said. The book captures what it’s like to live between two countries, he said. Cheung said students from both U.S. and China would find the book appealing as many scenes and themes are relatable to them.

“It’s about the U.S. and the Beijing they know. It’s not just about history; books about history are really important, but students would feel more attracted to places, to the scenes they know themselves,” Cheung said. “These are about young people.”

Disability Inclusion Lab to celebrate nontraditional dance, aesthetic works in event

Prejudice can be held toward the idea of ability and dance when envisioning a supposedly ideal body. This notion can be challenged by having individuals with disabilities present their own ways of expression and movements, said Victoria Marks.

The professor of choreography/performance and chair of the disability studies minor will co-lead the UCLA Disability Inclusion Lab’s DANCING DISABILITY at Glorya Kaufman Hall from June 23 to 29. The event features laboratories in which participants identifying with a disability choreograph their own movements, as well as seminars for the same individuals to discuss the aesthetics and issues surrounding disability.

Bringing awareness to the presence of people with disabilities in the dance field gives performers a chance to showcase diversity through choreography, Marks said.

“It’s not teaching somebody to do something that already exists, it’s creating an opportunity for these artists to make something of their very own with a set of languages and skill sets that … will be part of their art form,” Marks said.

The event will help dancers with disabilities feel justified and affirmed as creators of art, Marks said. Disability dance offers a new and different way of thinking and being in the world, said Emory University professor Rosemarie Garland-Thomson. While covering disability justice and accessible technology, Garland-Thomson said she will also feature the importance of accessible environments while leading the Critical Disability Studies Seminar portion of the event.

Communicating using visual images, an appropriate auditory environment and American Sign Language will also make the workshop a reflection of an inclusive and accessible environment, Garland-Thomson said. Her workshop will present performances of ASL poetry and blind burlesque, she said, to showcase aesthetic works from people with disabilities.

The concept of transformation helps correct disability injustice in the dance genre, Garland-Thomson said. One form of transformation is done through costuming, she said, where devices like crutches or wheelchairs are thought of as aesthetic implements rather than medical equipment. Transformation can also take the form of redefining the expected appearances of dancers themselves, Garland-Thomson said.

To accomplish this, Garland-Thomson said she will show participants images of dancers that have bodies different from “traditional” dancers – such as artists that do not have legs or have unusually shaped arms. She said disability dance challenges conceptions on what is classified as a “dancing body.”

“Disability dance puts forth a model of how bodies are understood generally (and) traditionally within culture and society as being damaged, limited (and) abnormal,” Garland-Thomson said. “It transforms those bodies … to enter into this visual economy as what counts as aesthetically beautiful (which) is a very important thing to do in terms of what we think of as inclusion or justice in the world.”

Participants will be able to attend laboratories such as the “Discovery Lab” and “Making Lab.” During the former, Marks said attendees will individually explore choreographic access to movement through their bodies. Alice Sheppard, a dancer and choreographer, said participants will be asked to research the cultural meanings of their physical impairments as a translation method to create movements that reflect their findings.

“The work is really focused through each individual impairment,” Sheppard said. “I will be supporting them as they … language their impairment and then think about the cultural values that are ascribed to that.”

The “Making Lab” will present attendees with specific situations to solve, such as what “vitality” can look and feel like, Marks said. One of the situations attendees will be presented is how to create and thwart expectations, she said. Each person must individually find their own solution method, which she said demonstrates how individuals with disabilities can use their own movements instead of learning other people’s techniques to produce art.

People participating in the event come from a range of countries, including New Zealand and South Africa, which she said provides a wider variety of movements and cultural interpretations. Participants of the event will gain a greater sense of community with other international artists with disabilities – even when they return back to their hometowns, Marks said.

The event will assist with breaking down the notion that only one type of disability and body exists, Marks said, through encouraging artists to pursue their own artistic visions and embodiment in their local communities.

“Rather than present one normalized idea (of) what dance and disability could look like, what we are there to do is to encourage this group of artists to pursue their own vision and their own embodiment,” Marks said.

Bringing awareness to individuals with physical differences in the dance community provides an opportunity for them to express their own experiences to the public, Marks said.

“Every time we don’t encounter a person with physical differences, we continue to live in a world where we confirm the notion that bodies are normalized and typical,” Marks said. “Putting out in the world that there are communities of individuals who move differently is an opportunity for the rest of us to broaden our sense of who we … are.”

Bruin beach volleyball graduates head to Germany to compete in Olympic qualifier

Three days after UCLA beach volleyball won the NCAA championship May 5, three Bruins traveled to Brazil to compete in an Olympic qualifier.

Outgoing seniors Nicole and Megan McNamara and Sarah Sponcil will continue their Olympic pursuits in the 2019 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships in Hamburg, Germany, starting Friday. The tournament is one of the three opportunities players have to qualify directly for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo – meaning much of the toughest competition will be in Germany.

“The level of play is a pretty big jump from college to playing on the world tour,” Sponcil said. “Your skills alone aren’t going to take care of it, which I think in college it does and that’s how we won.”

Sponcil entered the professional circuit with partner Kelly Claes, a USC graduate, representing the U.S. The duo practiced throughout the spring season to prepare for the summer circuit, but their debut in the Brazil didn’t go as planned.

The U.S. sent 11 pairs to the FIVB Itapema Open, though only 10 could compete, forcing Sponcil and Claes to face another U.S. team – Brooke Sweat and Kerri Walsh Jennings – for a spot in the first round. Sponcil and Claes’ loss eliminated them before main draw play began – which Sponcil said was a shock after running a 28-5 record in her last season as a Bruin.

“That was a big wake up call for me just because our team obviously won a lot throughout the season in college but the girls are so much better now,” Sponcil said. “You’re not going to win everything – sometimes talent alone isn’t gonna allow you to win games. You need experience, you need to learn how to treat it like a game of chess.”

One of the main differences between the collegiate game and the professional level is the extent to which coaching is allowed. In college, coaches can give input during timeouts and side switches, but professionals are expected to self-coach during matches.

UCLA coach Stein Metzger said Sponcil has room for improvement in terms of self-coaching and strategizing heading into the world championships.

“You really have to be an on-the-court coach, which takes experience, and (Sponcil) recognizes when she plays athletes that are in their 30s that they’re very good at it,” Metzger said. “There’s no quick fix to that, it’s just something that comes with experience and playing at that level. (Sponcil) has admitted that she’s learning at a very rapid pace in terms of strategizing and game planning and having to shoulder that role.”

Unlike Sponcil, the McNamaras have been mostly self-coached in their time as Bruins. The twins have played together since they started the sport and have already had experience representing Canada internationally.

The twins both stand at 5-foot-9, making them the shortest court-one pair in the 2019 NCAA beach volleyball field. While Stein said they are prepared in terms of strategizing, they will need to improve their blocking to have success at the professional level.

“(The McNamaras) are relentless on the court in terms of defense and they really are going to have to rely on that,” Metzger said. “(But) everybody on the pro tour can attack well, and people pass better and set better. … So, in order for (the twins) to change what their opponents do, they won’t just be able to rely on good defense – they’re going to need to change what their opponent does while at the net, which means getting better as blockers.”

Sponcil and Claes enter the World Championships as the No. 14 seed and will face Evgenia Ukolova and Ekaterina Birlova of Russia in the first round. The McNamaras are seeded No. 34, pitting them against Italy’s Marta Menegatti and Viktoria Orsi Toth.

Multiple groups claim renting rooms from ASUCLA come with steep or surprise fees

Both UCLA and non-UCLA groups said they face unexpected room rental costs when hosting events on campus.

Associated Students UCLA room rentals are free for student groups for certain venues, but additional charges may be added after a group hosts an event. Prices increase for on-campus clients as well as off-campus clients, who can ask for funding from student government and neighborhood councils.

Outside groups may have to allocate a large budget to finding an event space if they intend to host their event at UCLA. Joseph Lopez, state ambassador at WestCal Academy, a secondary education nonprofit college, said he was part of one of these groups.

Lopez said he was discontent with the pricing at a North Westwood Neighborhood Council meeting at which WestCal Academy was requesting funds from the council in order to host an event at UCLA.

UCLA asked the nonprofit for $5,000 to rent out the Village Valley Room at Weyburn Terrace, Lopez said.

Lopez said WestCal Academy has hosted events on other college campuses, such as UC Davis, California State University, Long Beach and Humanities & Arts Academy of Los Angeles, and has never been requested to pay a fee.

“We do not charge students for our program and every penny counts,” Lopez said. “These costs restrict our ability to interact with UCLA students.”

Student groups also face additional fees that impede their ability to host and organize on-campus events.

Although student organizations can rent venue spaces for free on campus, there have been additional charges and fees placed on accounts after the event, which have put student groups’ accounts on hold, said Siena Villegas, a rising third-year business economics student and member of Samahang Pilipino Education and Retention.

“ASUCLA said we didn’t clean up after ourselves and that the charge was for the extra janitorial costs,” Villegas said. “But every time we use a space, we are definitely sure to clean up everything. There was no appealing process either.”

Villegas said she hopes a clearer process can be established in the future for student organizations and ASUCLA with regards to these rental spaces.

Kimberly Bonifacio, the Undergraduate Students Association Council internal vice president and rising fourth-year political science student, said these additional venue costs can affect student groups’ abilities to host events because not all groups are aware of the funding applications offered to alleviate the costs.

Bonifacio said student groups are able to apply for various scholarships that allocate funds to encourage student programming.

“I personally think that student groups should be able to host events on campus without having to take on more financial costs because students pay enough student fees,” Bonifacio said.

ASUCLA Event Services only add costs after an event if there was a change requested by the student group the day of the event, if the group exceeded its approved event length or if the group engaged in unapproved activities that imposed extraordinary cleaning costs on the venue, according to an email statement from ASUCLA.

According to ASUCLA, an appeals process is already in place. Fees that student groups disagree with can be appealed to the events division manager, according to ASUCLA Event Services protocol. If questions still exist, then appeals can be made to the student union director.

Despite most rooms being free for student use, certain buildings like Royce Hall are not and certain student groups may have to allocate large amounts of money to reserve these kinds of spaces.

Eunice Kang, the finance advisor for Korean Culture Night and a rising fourth-year psychology student, said the majority of the money her student organization raises goes to renting event spaces.

“Korean Culture Night’s annuals production cost varies anywhere from $45,000-$50,000 total per year, and we project around $30,000 of that cost goes toward renting out UCLA Royce Hall and other facilities such as Kerckhoff Grand Salon for our KCN Run-Thru Rehearsals,” she said in an email.

Kang said that, with the production value of Korean Culture Night being extremely steep, the organization applies to at least eight to 10 different programming funds.

“These programming funds are very receptive to our applications and needs because they are understandings of the costs and efforts that are put into organizing student-led culture nights and are willing to financially donate thousands of dollars for our event,” she said.