Op-ed: Regents quietly, unjustly cut student advisor position last minute

The students of the University of California were conned out of a seat at the leadership table last month.

Three weeks ago, the UC Board of Regents voted on a proposal to extend the student advisor pilot program it had created two years prior after student calls for more representation in the University’s decision-making body. Without telling the public beforehand, the regents altered the motion to instead remove any option to keep the student advisor.

In other words, voting for or against the motion would remove the student adviser position.

Changing the motion drastically at the last minute meant students didn’t have time to respond. As Regent Charlene Zettel noted, the agenda item stated the regents were voting on a proposal to keep the position, and to amend it so significantly meant administrators severely misled the public. The regents, however, approved the proposal anyways – a shockingly deceptive and untransparent decision.

By terminating the student advisor position, the regents are preventing students from participating in University governance and limiting the diversity of the student voice. This decision sets a dangerous precedent of unilateral decision-making by the regents when it comes to student participation on the Board of Regents.

The student advisor position was created in order to provide the regents with a more comprehensive student perspective. The advisor is a member of multiple regent committees, has official UC staff, can freely speak at any open regent committee meetings and gets the contact information of and personal meetings with the regents.

The position is a means to provide more diversity to the decision-making table, since the advisor is selected specifically from student populations not represented by the student regent – if the student regent is an undergraduate, for example, the advisor would be a graduate. While the advisor position is designed to represent student interests, the student regent does not have a “representative lens,” as Devon Graves, the UC student regent, put it, or the obligation to student representation that the advisor does.

The advisor advocates for students by building relationships and having frequent discussions with key decision-makers, including the regents and legislators, and thus has the power to directly influence policies like tuition prices and sexual harassment policies. To put this into perspective, the last advisor had a major hand in establishing an instrumental branch of the UC Advocacy Network, a student lobbying effort to fund the UC, that subsequently helped prevent a tuition hike.

Losing the advisor means we students lose one of the most powerful channels to fight for our interests and be represented in UC leadership.

More troubling, though, was the way the regents came to the decision to terminate the position. Regent Sherry Lansing implied her decision to sunset the student advisor seat was because Graves supported the move. But the regents should have listened to the perspectives of many students instead of having a private discussion with Graves alone.

The regents did not even consult the student advisor, Edward Huang. Had they done so, they would have realized how other student groups, such as the UC Council of Student Body Presidents and the UC Graduate and Professional Council, clearly wanted to retain the position.

Most importantly, the meetings leading up to the regents’ decision were held in private. The UC Student Association, an advocacy body composed of UC campus student leaders, met in a closed session only a couple days before the regents’ vote to end the position, and barred Huang from the discussion, despite stating it supported keeping the advisor position. This decision was not UCSA’s to privately make: The organization collects fees from undergraduates on UC campuses, and should have consulted students, especially Huang.

Removing the student advisor also does not benefit students. The regents agreed to offer students more UCSA Student Advocates to the Regents, or StARs, and student observers in exchange for the student advisor. These positions don’t have much power, as the StARs can only give short public comments during meetings, and are allowed in the room where regents eat lunch during the meeting, which the regents can leave at any time. Observers are similar, but they give their short statements at committee meetings instead.

StARs also must fill out a separate application for each meeting and are usually represented by different students each time, making it difficult to build relationships and develop clout among administrators. Neither of these positions can engage in discussion during the meetings. The regents’ discussion last month implied many did not even know the names of the StARs or student observers.

So, UCSA traded a seat at the highest board of power to increase nameless positions it is already struggling to fill that have virtually the same access that any member of the public has. The student population will continue to lack representation at the highest levels of the University because Graves and UCSA fed into the false narrative that student representation cannot be increased without sacrificing what little representation we have.

Major decisions regarding student representation must be transparent. Having the ability to privately amend and vote on altered agendas that significantly contradict what was publicly advertised removes the public’s ability to remain vigilant and hold the regents accountable. Curtailing students’ abilities to share their viewpoints – especially in public spaces like UCSA – results in short-sighted and skewed decisions.

Most importantly, granting regents the power to change motions at the last minute and add nontopical things at random without telling the public in advance is dangerous.

We need a revote and rules to safeguard against this.

Alviri is a fourth-year history student at UC Berkeley.

Alumna seeks social justice through film, owns charitable wine company

This post was updated Feb. 7 at 2:18 p.m.

Francis Ford Coppola’s career as a notable filmmaker and winemaker inspired Eunice Chiweshe Goldstein.

Like Coppola, Goldstein is a UCLA alumna, actor, screenwriter, director and producer. As of November, she is also the first African-American female owner of a winery in Oregon.

The eponymous Eunice Chiweshe Goldstein Winery in Astoria, Oregon includes a tasting room and sells varieties of locally produced wine. The wine industry, similar to the highly exclusive film industry, lacks many African-American females, Goldstein said, and she hopes her work will help create a platform for herself and others. Through her films, Goldstein aims to bring attention to urgent social justice issues and with her winery, she tries to give back to the community via charitable donations from her sales.

“I’m grateful for the fact that I can use film to help others and now use wine to also open a lot of doors and help others,” she said. “Being a filmmaker and a (winery) owner I feel like I will use those two to help as much as I can and bring people together.”

Goldstein alternates days between her winery work and film work. She said both wine and film are forms of sharing truth; wine lifts inhibitions to open up an honest conversation and films highlight important stories that people ought to know about.

Goldstein’s winery selection is nicknamed #purposewine because each month she selects a charity or nonprofit which will receive a certain percentage of each sale she makes. She chooses each charity based on personal connections as well as from client recommendations. She previously chose a breast cancer charity after her grandmother passed away from the disease, and is planning to partner with a charity that supports veterans based on a customer’s recommendation.

Sales executive Kathleen Henry said the winery is also named after Goldstein’s grandmother, who believed in helping others. The winery recently partnered with the Brian Grant Foundation, which provides resources for people with Parkinson’s disease. Katrina Kahl, executive director of the foundation, said the winery provides bottles and gift baskets for their galas, helping to raise funds and bring awareness to the cause.

While her winery works to help nonprofits, Goldstein’s films aim to highlight important causes through storytelling. She recently wrote a script critiquing social welfare programs, acted as Robert Smalls’ wife in “Kevin Hart’s Guide to Black History” and directed a documentary about the Flint, Michigan, water crisis that she hopes to release later this year.

For the film, Goldstein travelled to Flint to learn about the contamination of the water by major corporations that has persisted for more than four years. The documentary focuses on the perspective of the people who live there and their personal experiences without clean water. One of her subjects is Flint resident Yolanda Figueroa, who she interviewed and stayed with for the duration of filming. Figueroa said she appreciated that Goldstein’s film pursues truth from people actually affected by the crisis.

“I’m proud of my city and not one to be in the forefront, but I care about the people who live here and … I feel that (Goldstein is) giving Flint a voice and I’m happy for her with the winery,” Figueroa said. “I’m happy it’s something to bring people together.”

In the near future, Goldstein said she hopes to expand the winery into a bed-and-breakfast, housing guests who are going through the town, while continuing to sell wine on Amazon for those who cannot make it to the winery in person. She also hopes to fill the winery with her film memorabilia that is important to her and continue partnering with charities that need support.

“What I want people to take away from this whole thing is that we can make it a better world and we can come together and just start doing it one by one,” Goldstein said. “The more we lean on each other, the more we can get done in any capacity.”

Out-of-class exams place unnecessary stress, responsibility on busy students

It’s exciting to come home around 5 p.m. after a long day of class and midterms – unless of course, you have an evening midterm, in which case you’ll have to spend another two hours drilling into your brain until you get a migraine.

UCLA instructors have the option to hold midterms in or out of class. Professors who hold midterms outside of lecture hours are required to say so on the MyUCLA Schedule of Classes so students know prior to enrollment. If a student is unable to attend one of the midterms, the instructor or department can attempt to accommodate the student. Typically this accommodation would again entail the student taking an exam out of class, which could require them to reorganize their schedule.

This means that although a class may have lectures on Tuesdays and Thursdays, it can have midterms on Fridays. For example, in the life sciences department if a student is unable to attend the midterms, they have to contact the Life Sciences Core Education office by Friday of second week and hope they have a valid reason to take it at another out-of-class time.

This is an inconvenience to students particularly if they have extracurricular activities in the evening or work outside of class that cannot be rescheduled.

Students at UCLA shouldn’t have to take out-of-class midterms. Instructors are responsible for creating appropriately challenging exams that can be taken within the class period. There are only a finite number of hours in the week, and students already dedicate a certain number of them to attending class, discussions, review sessions and office hours. No class should require special treatment, given that numerous departments and professors are able to have exams during class hours.

Frank Laski, professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology and chair of the Life Sciences Core Education office, said that the life science department prefers to do out-of-class midterms so professors don’t waste lecture time. It also gives professors the ability to give two-hour exams, and to deter students from cheating by spreading them out among different exam locations.

But students are paying the university to educate them. It is unreasonable for UCLA to have classes that cover so much material they can’t test students during the class period they signed up for. And even if such classes were justified, there are accommodations, such as two-part exams or take-home exams, that are are completely viable.

The onus should be on the professor, not the student.

The university already asks students to put in tens of thousands of dollars to get a diploma. Not everyone can find someone to cover their shifts on days they have out-of-class midterms, and students can face serious ramifications for missing work shifts.

Irma Ramos, a second-year biology student, has a life sciences class on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, but her out-of-class exams are on Thursdays. On her days off, she works nine-hour shifts back home. In other words, on the days she has her midterms, she can’t work.

“I can’t make up the hours,” she said. “I’m forced to work weekends, which is hard because then I don’t have time to study.”

In effect, a two-hour exam requires Ramos to give up nine hours worth of pay with the only recompense being that she gets to take a life sciences exam in the evening.

Many students also have demanding extracurricular commitments they cannot skip.

Rachael Hunt, a second-year physiological science student who is on the cheer team and has a front desk job, said she had two midterms this year that conflicted with her extracurriculars.

“For my job, I can switch work hours but I can’t switch cheer,” Hunt said.

This comes at a time when a good number of courses, such as those in the life sciences department, are already hybridized to make students watch “lecture videos” outside of class. Adding an additional lecture video to make up for lost time is not unreasonable to ask for.

Professors can be concerned about cheating and schedule night exams to get more space to host midterms or finals. However, considering that many life sciences midterms are multiple choice and completed on Scantrons, professors could create two or three test forms and scramble the order of questions. This would hopefully deter cheating, as looking at a neighbor’s exam wouldn’t help a student because the questions would be out of order.

Moreover, having evening exams on just two arbitrary days is incredibly inconvenient. In terms of work hours, it can mean altering an entire quarter’s work schedule just because exams will cause you to miss two shifts. When exams are in class, students already have the responsibility of scheduling work hours or telling the organizations they are part of that they have class every week at that time and cannot make it. But the irregularity of evening midterms ends up making it difficult to maintain a weekly commitment.

Yes, out-of-class midterms do provide students more time to take exams and allow professors to get more lecture halls to spread students out and help them overcome their urges to cheat. But these benefits do not outweigh the cost students bear. And there’s no reason why a particular department should not be able to create a scheduled structure for holding in-class exams.

After all, an in-class midterm may be a nuisance for professors with a lot to teach. But out-of-class midterms are migraines for students.

 

Men’s basketball loses to Colorado Buffaloes 73-84 in season’s fourth home loss

The Bruins couldn’t hold on to any momentum.

UCLA men’s basketball (12-11, 5-5 Pac-12) kept within striking distance of Colorado (13-9, 4-6) for nearly all 40 minutes Wednesday night, but ultimately lost 84-73 at Pauley Pavilion. The Bruins have now lost their last three meetings with the Buffaloes dating back to last season.

Colorado, who entered the evening with the worst 3-point percentage in the Pac-12 at 32 percent, came out of the gates red hot from beyond the arc. The Buffaloes knocked down four of their first five attempts from deep and built up a 20-8 lead in just over six minutes.

Despite Colorado’s strong start, UCLA coach Murry Bartow decided to stick with the zone for the remainder of the night. The Buffaloes, however, continued to take advantage of the zone, finishing the night 13-of-24 from long range.

Following the game, Bartow said he considered switching his defensive strategy, but defended his decision to remain in the zone. He also said he felt he was putting his players in the best position to succeed on that side of the floor.

“I considered (switching defenses),” Bartow said. “But I’m going to say this: No one – no one knows this team better than I do, so I know what we’re good at and what we’re bad at and so I know what defense to play because I know these guys.”

Bartow also expressed his disappointment in the loss, but said the most frustrating part of the night was not being able to find a way to win at home.

“I’m just like anybody in the room, I’m a competitor,” Bartow said. “When you’re at home, and you’ve got a game at home, you’ve got to figure out a way to line up and win and we just didn’t get it done.”

Despite the frustration levels running high, freshman center Moses Brown said he still has confidence in this season, and that it will be important moving forward the Bruins don’t let losses like the one they suffered Wednesday affect their confidence.

“I have 100 percent faith in (Bartow) and what he tells me to do and what my teammates do,” Brown said. “We work as hard as we can every single day in practice. So I have faith that we will do well this season. And a loss like this shouldn’t really keep us down or have us discouraged in any type of way.”

Brown was one of the few bright spots for UCLA in the loss, as he recorded 17 points on 8-of-10 shooting. The seven-footer also added eight rebounds, four steals and four blocks in 29 minutes.

Sophomore guard Chris Smith had a bounce-back performance for the Bruins as well, coming off the bench to score 14 points and grab three rebounds. Smith had not scored in double figures since UCLA played California on Jan. 5.

Sophomore guard Jaylen Hands said it was nice to see Smith have a solid performance given his recent struggles.

“We’re 11 to 12 guys deep so we want everyone to play well,” Hands said. “To see your friend and teammate do well after he’s been having a rough spot is always good.”

The Bruins will return to action Saturday when they welcome Utah (11-10, 5-4) to Pauley Pavilion.

Colorado leads UCLA men’s basketball 38-37 at halftime in Pauley Pavilion

Wednesday’s first half went better for the Bruins than their last.

Despite having only nine turnovers compared to the 18 it had in the first half against Washington on Saturday, UCLA men’s basketball (12-10, 5-4 Pac-12) trails Colorado (12-9, 3-6) 38-37 at the half.

The Buffaloes opened the contest by jumping out to a 20-8 lead behind a red hot start from the floor. Colorado knocked down eight of its first 11 shots, including four 3s in five attempts.

Forward D’Shawn Schwartz led the Buffaloes in scoring with 12 points on 5-of-7 shooting, and connected on a pair of 3s.

The Bruins, however, stopped the early bleeding and pulled within six after a quick 6-0 run of their own. UCLA also ended the half with a 9-0 run capped off by a 3-pointer from sophomore guard Jaylen Hands.

The Bruins had five different players score at least five points in the opening half, including Hands, who leads UCLA in scoring with eight points.

The Bruins also shot 50 percent from the floor, but missed three of their six attempts at the free throw line and seven of their eleven attempts from beyond the arc.

UCLA has not beaten Colorado since January 2017.

Event analyzes roles of race, gender in testimonies against Supreme Court nominees

The rage of vulnerable populations is often stoked when injustice is made visible, said author Rebecca Traister.

Such was the case with the congressional testimonies of Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford.

Tuesday night, the Hammer Museum hosted “Speaking Truth to Power: From Thomas to Kavanaugh,” which featured a screening of the documentary “Anita,” followed by a conversation between UCLA law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw and Traister. The two discussed their personal connections to the hearings, the complexity of race and identity in Hill’s hearing, and the legacy of the confirmations moving forward.

Hill testified in 1991 and Ford testified in 2018, both before the Senate Judiciary Committee about alleged sexual misconduct of nominees to the United States Supreme Court – Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, respectively. Despite the highly contentious nature of the hearings, ultimately, both Thomas and Kavanaugh were confirmed, and both men currently sit on the Supreme Court today, said Hammer director of public programs, Claudia Bestor.

The Hammer event happened to coincide with the State of the Union address, which Bestor pointed out in her introduction. She also said many in the audience likely had strong feelings about the confirmation hearings – the event had sold out, with audience members in a second viewing room to watch a livestreaming of the event.

“Tonight is a chance to review these cases and maybe to vent a little bit too,” Bestor said. “Because I don’t know how you all feel, but I feel very, very, very angry about how these women were treated and how victims of sexual harassment and sexual violence are still to this day dismissed, ignored, disregarded, mocked and even villainized.”

The audience then watched the 2013 documentary “Anita,” which follows the events of the 1991 Thomas confirmation hearing, guided by interviews with Hill herself, as well as members of her family and legal team and journalists who covered the story.

Following the screening, Crenshaw and Traister discussed their personal experiences with the hearings. Crenshaw had served on Hill’s legal team and remembered her confusion when Democrats failed to defend Hill from particularly harsh lines of questioning, expecting more from them, she said.

“I didn’t get why they weren’t on her side,” Crenshaw said. “The thing about being disillusioned is you don’t realize you were illusioned until you lose it.”

Traister, on the other hand, said she was a teenager who had a grown up in a liberal environment, watching the hearings with her conservative grandparents in rural Maine. She said she struggled to reconcile her own thoughts and the highly negative reactions of her grandparents – a fact that she believes has led her to repeatedly write about Hill’s testimony in her books, still trying to unravel her initial mental conflict.

The two then talked about the complex role of identity in Hill’s hearing. The framework of the hearings was partially constructed and obscured by color-blind feminism – an insistence that Hill’s case dealt only with gender and not with race, Crenshaw said.

“When he was able to say, ‘This is a high-tech lynching for black men who think for themselves,’ he is able at that moment to galvanize the support … and basically pull the racial solidarity rug away from Anita Hill,” Crenshaw said.

Nearly 27 years later, Ford’s testimony served as a reinforcement of many of the observations gleaned from Hill’s testimony, Traister said. Ford was everything that Hill was not – a white, married woman from an elite background, she said. However, Traister also said Hill’s experience was ultimately discounted, either by disbelief or ambivalence. Traister said she believes that the committee believed Ford, but the Republicans chose to advance Kavanaugh’s nomination anyway, sending a message of what was acceptable.

One common thread between the two hearings that Traister pointed out was the presence of anger and who was allowed to display it. Traister, who most recently wrote the book “Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger,” said that watching the documentary, she recognized the same display of gritted rage in Thomas as she had seen in Kavanaugh’s loud outbursts.

“The expression of anger and who’s permitted to express it and how the expression of anger intersects with who has power in a given situation and on whose behalf you’re being angry,” Traister said. “Anita Hill had to be precise, polite, even-toned, solicitous – she was already treated as a disruptive, violent, disorderly body and so everything in her tone and demeanor had to be restrained, controlled and unthreatening.”

When considering change from 1991 to 2018, Crenshaw and Traister both said they believe a direct line could be drawn from Thomas to Kavanaugh. According to Traister, Thomas became a deciding vote in a case that gutted the Voting Rights Act, which in turn created the electoral circumstances for Donald Trump to win office and nominate Kavanaugh to the court. Audience members also considered the modern-day implications of the nominations. When one college student asked about proposed changes to Title IX, Crenshaw identified the changes as an example of the consequences of elections. The president tends to appoint like-minded individuals, raising the need for sustained organization and attention, she said.

“I just hope that that level of righteous indignation about it continues,” Crenshaw said. “We’ve got two more years in which (there is) the possibility that that steam gets lost … so we’ve got big fights ahead.”