The Rundown: Dec. 6

Football
Sam Connon, assistant Sports editor

UCLA football had two players named to All-Pac-12 teams this week and another five given honorable mentions. The Bruins also had 13 players recognized for their academic success, with only redshirt freshman defensive lineman Odua Isibor and sophomore defensive back Quentin Lake named to the Pac-12 All-Academic second team.

Redshirt junior tight end Caleb Wilson was the lone Bruin named to the All-Pac-12 first team after amassing a Football Bowl Subdivision tight end-leading 965 yards. Wilson, who is now eligible to enter the 2019 NFL Draft, totaled 1,675 yards, five touchdowns and 114 receptions in his 24 games with UCLA.

Redshirt senior defensive back Adarius Pickett was named to the All-Pac-12 second team in his final season with the Bruins. Pickett had six games with double-digit tackles this year, racking up 123 total tackles – good for fourth in the conference.

Redshirt junior running back Joshua Kelley, junior wide receiver Theo Howard, sophomore defensive back Darnay Holmes, junior kicker JJ Molson and redshirt senior punter Stefan Flintoft were all honorable mentions. Kelley ranked fourth in yards and tied for second in touchdowns among Pac-12 running backs, while Howard led the nation in receptions without a drop with 51. The 2019 schedule was also officially released Tuesday.

UCLA’s home opener will be against San Diego State at the Rose Bowl, where back-to-back College Football Playoff semifinalist Oklahoma will visit one week later.

UCLA has one non-Saturday game, which will come Thursday, Oct. 17 at Stanford after the Bruins’ first bye week.

Washington State and Oregon State are back on UCLA’s schedule after the Bruins did not play either team in 2017 and 2018. The Victory Bell will be up for grabs yet again in the second-to-last game of the year when the Bruins and Trojans face off Nov. 23 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. UCLA will wrap up its season at home against California on Nov. 30.

Men’s basketball Gabe McCarthy, assistant Sports editor

UCLA men’s basketball sophomore guard Jaylen Hands was named the winner of the UCLA/Muscle Milk Student-Athlete of the Week award for the week of Nov. 26 through Dec. 2. This was Hands’ first time receiving the award this season and in his UCLA career.

This honor marks the second time a member of the men’s basketball team has received UCLA/Muscle Milk Student-Athlete of the Week honors this season.

Hands currently leads the Pac-12 in assists per game and total assists, with 6.3 and 50, respectively. He recorded his first career double-double in an 82-58 victory over Loyola Marymount, logging 17 points and 10 assists. In the Bruins’ previous match against Hawai’i, Hands put up a career-high 11 assists.

This season, Hands is shooting .362 percent from the field, with a .333 3-point shooting percentage. He recorded a season-high points total against Presbyterian, with 19 points.

Hands made 15 starts in 31 games last season as a freshman, averaging 9.9 points and 2.6 assists per game. He totaled 81 assists last season and posted double figures in scoring in 14 games. Hands’ career high for points was a 23-point effort against Detroit Mercy last December.

The other Bruin squad member to claim student-athlete of the week honors this season was freshman center Moses Brown, who has averaged 13 points, five assists and 9.9 rebounds. Brown has posted season highs in points and rebounds with 23 and 17, respectively, against Saint Francis and Purdue Fort Wayne.  

USAC recap – Nov. 4

The Undergraduate Students Association Council is the official student government representing the undergraduate student body at UCLA. Council meetings take place every Tuesday at 7 p.m. in Kerckhoff 417 and are open to all students. Watch a livestream of the meetings on the USAC Live! channel on YouTube.

Public Comments:

  • Students from Hermanas Unidas de UCLA and Students for Justice in Palestine asked the council to allocate discretionary funding to provide supplies and aid to Central American refugees along the Mexican Border.

Special Presentations:

  • Andy Cofino, director of LGBT Campus Resource Center, discussed resources the center provides, including drop-in counseling and academic counseling.
  • Lt. Kevin Kilgore presented in his UCPD monthly update that students remained safe throughout the SPJ Conference.
  • CALPIRG presented updates on its Save the Bees campaign. CALPIRG has collected 1,900 signatures for their No Bees No Food Campaign and ran a 100% Renewable energy campaign, Affordable Textbook Campaign and New Voters Project. Next quarter they will run a 100% Renewable transportation campaign encouraging the use of electric buses and a 0% Hungry campaign geared toward UC students.

Agenda:

  • The council allocated a total of $5,823 from contingency programming fund to non-USAC groups.
  • The council allocated $3,000 from the Supplemental Funds for Service to Bruin Partners and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority.
  • The council allocated $2,000 from Academic Success Referendum Fund to the USAC Financial Supports Commission.
  • The council allocated $1,500 to Hermanas Unidas de UCLA to supply aid to refugees along the Mexican border.
  • The council moved $150,000 in preliminary surplus allocations to a holding account and $55,782.49 to restricted surplus funding.
  • The council discussed their concerns about media access to council members’ personal phone numbers.
  • The council appointed Chloe Tamadon, a third-year materials science student, as a fieldman in the Student Conduct Committee.

Reports:

  • President Claire Fieldman said her office finished making appointments. She added her office will hand out encouraging notes, along with free blue books and scantrons, on Bruinwalk during finals week.
  • Internal Vice President Robert Blake Watson said his office was working on a clothing drive for the Good Clothes Good People project. He added the Off-Campus Living Fair will take place Jan. 20, 2019.
  • External Vice President Jamie Kennerk said her office has been working with UCPath to set up a town hall meeting Dec. 6. She added crew members will be at the town hall to help troubleshoot pay issues after the event. She also added the public comment period on changes to federal Title IX policies has opened and she encourages students to submit feedback.
  • General Representative 2 Bella Martin said her office has been working with the Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Association leaders to create a Risk Management Reflection. Each fraternity was tasked with sending USAC a list of policies for which they will hold their chapter accountable, such as social event conduct.
  • General Representative 3 Eduardo Solis said his office finished their Bruins Come First Campaign, through which they received almost 700 signatures on a petition to add a National Suicide Hotline number on the back of BruinCards. He added his office finished their donation drive and raised over $1,000 to help refugees at the U.S.-Mexico border.
  • Campus Events Commissioner Alley Madison said her office has organized a screening of “The Upside” in the James Bridges Theater on Dec. 9. She added her office is circulating a survey to gauge the perceived accessibility of its events.
  • Cultural Affairs Commissioner Sarena Khasawneh said her office organized de-stress activities for week 10, including plate breaking.
  • Financial Support Commissioner Jay Manzano said his office collected 63 clickers for the office’s loaner library, expanding the total to 471. He added his office received USAC funding for twenty $50 scholarships for textbooks.

Second Take: ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ adds much-needed diversity to Marvel franchise

Peter Parker has donned the Spider-Man suit in countless films, but in “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” Miles Morales will be stepping into the famous web slinger’s shoes.

Miles first appeared in the comics in 2011 when his character took on the Spider-Man mantle following Peter Parker’s death. He will make his film debut in the new animated Spider-Man movie. The Afro-Latino teen has come to symbolize a new wave of inclusivity for some comic book fans, though his on-screen presence tells a more complicated story.

While “Into the Spider-Verse,” which comes out Dec. 14, has earned widespread critical acclaim, the film also exposes a long-standing problem for Marvel Comics: Despite the breadth of the established cinematic universe, the franchise is painfully lacking in diversity. Miles’ new starring role serves as a reminder of how far Marvel has come, but also how far the company still has to go in terms of representation.

Though Miles and Spider-Man are Marvel characters, “Into the Spider-Verse” was produced by Sony Pictures Animation and isn’t part of the world of the Marvel Studios films – a result of character licensing and production deals – and instead takes place in an alternate universe. Though Miles’ story is intriguing, it doesn’t impact the larger narrative of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has hinted that Miles could appear in the MCU in the future, but no official plans have been announced – the MCU also already has Peter Parker, played by fan-favorite Tom Holland, as its own Spider-Man.

Holland does a wonderful job as Peter Parker, but it’s impossible not to wonder what the MCU would look like if it had been Miles Morales who swooped into the battle in “Captain America: Civil War.” At the time when Sony and Marvel reached the deal to share Spider-Man, the Marvel executives made a conscious choice to introduce the Peter Parker version of the character, despite the fact that the character has been featured in five different films in the preceding 12 years. No reason for the choice was ever given – perhaps Peter Parker’s instant name recognition or the fact that Sony was developing “Into the Spider-Verse” factored into the decision.

Miles’ story in particular is worth telling. As a reviewer from IGN said, Miles speaks to a different teenage experience than is often portrayed – his multicultural background represents the experiences of a growing population in America whose identity doesn’t fit neatly into a box. Miles breaks the mold of many of the superheroes who have come before him and “Into the Spider-Verse” allows many young boys to finally see a hero who looks just like them.

The juxtaposition of “Into the Spider-Verse” and the overall MCU throws a stark spotlight on diversity, or the lack thereof. Marvel’s numerous comic books showcase a range of diverse heroes, with characters such as Miles and the Pakistani-American Kamala Khan, who takes the mantle of Ms. Marvel. She too appears only in animation, featured on the incredibly diverse “Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors” series that almost exclusively stars women and people of color. While there seems to be more diversity in Marvel’s peripheral animated work, it has yet to incorporate the same diversity into its flagship films.

There is a particular power that comes from seeing these heroes in live action. While it’s inspiring to see them on-screen any form, audiences know that it isn’t their world – there’s a distance inherent in animation that distinguishes the on-screen world from our own. Seeing them in the MCU as well as in animated films like “Into the Spider-Verse” would be meaningful – placing them squarely in the universe in which we live and making them more real.

In recent years, the MCU has included more representation. This year’s “Black Panther” was a huge hit, marking the first MCU film to star a hero of color. Similarly, 2019’s “Captain Marvel” will mark the first Marvel film led by a woman. There are also signs of future progress in the MCU. Most recently, Marvel announced Monday it was moving forward with a film about Shang-Chi, the first Marvel film to be centered on an Asian character.

While it’s important to celebrate representative films like “Into the Spider-Verse,” it’s equally important to remember that these firsts have been a long time coming. It’s taken Marvel a while to center people of color and women in its cinematic storytelling.

Regardless of whether or not he appears in the MCU, now that he is on the big screen Miles can serve as a powerful reminder to children of color who grew up admiring Spider-Man but felt like they couldn’t identify with him. At the 2013 Comic-Con, actor Djimon Hounsou recalled a conversation he had with his 4-year-old son. Hounsou’s son said he wanted to be light-skinned so that he could be Spider-Man because the hero has light skin – he couldn’t conceive of a Spider-Man that had dark skin like him. And now, five years later, a dark-skinned Spider-Man will be playing in theaters across the country.

Hopefully Marvel will be able to follow the lead of “Into the Spider-Verse” by creating an on-screen team of superheroes as diverse as the world they’re tasked with protecting.

After Dark: ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the World’ screening 1-Ups other cult classic experiences

Los Angeles’ blend of midnight movies, cult screenings and historic theaters offers late-night scares and childhood nostalgia back in the theater. Join columnist Nina Young as she attends different cult screenings each week to find out why audiences stay out so late after dark.

An 8-bit version of the Universal Pictures logo starts off “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” with a bang, alerting viewers they’re about to enter a very different world.

As part of their Throwback Thursday film revivals, the Laemmle NoHo 7 theater in North Hollywood screened the film to complete its “My Life as a Video Game” series. Earlier this month, the theater featured a 1980s retro theme with films like “Tron” and “WarGames,” but the 2010 cult favorite, directed by Edgar Wright, is perhaps the truest union of the video game and film mediums.

Based off Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel series and in tangent with the subsequent video game, “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” follows Scott (Michael Cera) as he fights the evil exes of his romantic interest, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), all the while playing in his terrible – or great, opinions vary – garage band, Sex Bob-Omb. Throughout the film, graphic novel panels indicate flashbacks, and blocks of text appear on-screen to introduce characters. Icons even pop up within the world of the film, including a “1-Up Life” symbol. Most significantly, characters fight one another as if they are avatars in a computer game, using outrageous weapons like giant hammers to battle until KO’d, or knocked out.

Now is the time to come out and say it: I am absolutely a part of the “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” cult following.

Since watching it for the first time in 2010 – when my father and I wandered, bored, into the cinema one afternoon – I’ve likely seen the movie around 30 times. I own posters and figurines from the film and even dressed up as Ramona last Halloween by cutting socks into fingerless gloves and donning a green wig. While I’m not an avid video game fan, “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” introduced me to a different form of moviemaking, in which a director could drastically play with the filmic form.

How can you watch Cera cartoonishly spring into the air – kicking an opponent so hard they burst into coins – and not fall in love with the film?

My heart raced when April Moses, Noho 7’s assistant manager, introduced the film with “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”-specific questions, as I hadn’t yet attended a screening of a film I was very familiar with. But the trivia portion was humbling, as the crowd beat me to every answer. As a consolation prize, I learned new fun facts, such as how Wright encouraged his actors not to blink, mimicking the appearance of anime characters and further suggesting a video-game world.

Moses said she attempts to challenge fans with obscure actor facts, and she had no shortage of trivia to pull from. The box office bomb “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” features a surprisingly star-studded cast – in addition to Cera and Winstead, Brie Larson and Chris Evans both have supporting roles. For “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” in particular, Moses said she believes the film’s cult following is due to the film not taking itself very seriously, creating a laid-back atmosphere.

“I think it’s the fun of thinking, ‘I wish I could do that … I wish my life could be a video game,’” Moses said. “It’s always fun to sit with a crowd.”

In the words of the film’s hipster slang, it indeed was “so totally” fun to sit with a crowd, rather than watch it at home. “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” has personally become a film applicable to everyday life, one I might enjoy while cooking, taking a shower or studying. By transforming the cult film into a background track, I’d forgotten how mesmerizing its pixelated graphics could be, which brings me to:

Unofficial cult movie screening rule No. 14: For a cult film with an unusual style, try to follow the audience’s lead.

Previous cult screenings I’ve attended featured audiences preemptively reacting to lines or moments. The Noho 7’s screening surprisingly demonstrated an opposite reaction, as even devoted fans took a few moments to register the film’s hidden visual humor. The audience sometimes laughed a few seconds after a comedic beat, slowly noticing obscure details in the background, such as funny posters or easter eggs in the film’s production.

As I danced to the film’s garage rock band score, I definitely noticed others in my row drumming along to musical sequences. And while I didn’t see anyone wearing Sex Bob-Omb T-shirts, I know at least one person brought “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” memorabilia.

Unofficial cult movie screening rule No. 15: If you’re part of the cult community, bring along memorabilia!

My final screening rule encourages anyone who adores a film to eschew any outside judgments or embarrassment and embrace your inner cult fan. I brought along my “Scott Pilgrim” graphic novel to the screening, remembering the first time my father and I bonded over the film’s funniest moments and the quotes we still recite eight years later. Leaving the theater, despite the pouring rain, my heart seemed to grow a few sizes, as attending a screening of my favorite film while surrounded by fellow fans added a nostalgic and emotional character to the end of my Daily Bruin cult-film experience.

But, as one evil ex says in the film, “Every pilgrim reaches the end of their journey.”

Beauty pageants to take center stage and shed light on self-image in ‘Dumplin”

Drag queens performing to Dolly Parton help a girl who is plus-sized navigate a local beauty pageant in an upcoming Netflix film.

“Dumplin’,” releasing Friday on Netflix, follows Willowdean (Danielle Macdonald), a high school girl who signs up for a pageant to prove to her mom, Rosie (Jennifer Aniston), that the institution is shallow. Alumnus Elliot Davis, the director of photography, said pageants are based on the faulty premise that women can be judged objectively for their external beauty. However, the movie works to further the representation of women who are plus-sized with a realistic story that can be appreciated by both men and women, he said.

“In a certain way (“Dumplin'”) classifies as women’s issues, but it’s really universal. She’s been controlled, her environment’s been defined for her and she doesn’t like it,” Davis said. “She’s breaking out.”

Throughout the movie, Willowdean is preoccupied with her mother, who expresses discomfort about her daughter’s weight, and her crush, who Willowdean cannot believe would be attracted to her. The film emphasizes empowerment and transformation, said producer Kristin Hahn, which are shown in Willowdean’s gradual realization that she cannot define herself by the ways others perceive her. Hahn said everybody deserves to be on that stage regardless of their size, and men could benefit from that message as well.

“I hope dudes see the movie so that they can experience a story about a girl who you don’t typically see represented in film right now,” Hahn said. “(I hope they) get a female perspective on what it’s like to be a girl, what it’s like to be judged for your physicality, which men and boys certainly experience too.”

Davis said men will benefit from “Dumplin'” as much as women, as personal inadequacy is a feeling many people can relate to. Watching the film will help men empathize with women and have a better understanding of their circumstances, he said.

“When women are taught to change, it’s part of a male-dominated society,” Davis said. “It’s very important to be able to elucidate this to fit everybody.”

Similarly, Willowdean’s friend, Hannah (Bex Taylor-Klaus), learns throughout the movie that the pageant is a perfect opportunity to prove anybody can be on that stage, said actor Taylor-Klaus. Films like “Dumplin'” are important today because of their female-driven nature, evident in women working on- and off-screen, Taylor-Klaus said.

Davis said he uses his shots to highlight the important components of certain scenes, including one in which Willowdean finally performs her talent. This is a turning point for Willowdean because she overcomes her fears of judgment. Davis lit the scene with a spotlight, separating her from the background so she can take center stage among the other characters.

Macdonald said although Willowdean is learning to escape judgment, her character has an issue with judging others. She is quick to make assumptions about the girls in the pageant she doesn’t know and acts as if everybody is against her, writing off the other contestant who is plus-sized as a possible ally. However, as Willowdean frees herself from others’ opinions, she recognizes she herself should stop judging others, Macdonald said.

The crucial aspect of the movie, Davis said, is that Willowdean participates and focuses on the parts of the pageant that are not based on false senses of beauty.

“Every scene or shot has a subtext,” Davis said. “It has an essence of what it’s really about. She was not somebody that she had confidence in. She wasn’t proud of herself. But in (one of the final scenes), that’s a culmination, she was proud of herself, in her body and her spirit.”

Orientation needs an update to support new Bruin transfers as much as freshmen

I came to Transfer Student Orientation at 7 a.m. on a Friday, wide-eyed, bushy-tailed and ready to start my journey as a Bruin.

Fast forward 10 hours and I was frantically running around the Hill, hair wild, eyes bloodshot, laptop in one hand, my phone in the other, scouring Google Maps to figure out where in the world Sproul Cove was so I could barely make it in time to my advisor meeting.

Orientation is supposed to be a comprehensive look at UCLA that connects students with the institution they will be studying at for the next years of their academic life.

Transfer orientation is anything but.

Students are Bruintized, shuffled along to a three-hour presentation on course scheduling and then taken to a rally by the Transfer Student Center to emphasize transfer pride. Students primarily use this day to figure out their class planners and how to fulfill the requirements laid out by the departmental and New Student Advisors.

But transfer orientation tries to pack into 12 hours what New Student Orientation does in three days. UCLA forces workshops, class planning, learning how to navigate MyUCLA and safety training into one day that ends up being extremely chaotic. On top of that, new transfer students are left to their own devices to navigate the Hill and find the right rooms for different presentations and counseling meetings.

Rushing the enrollment process this way can lead to students not properly thinking through their academic paths at UCLA and making the wrong decisions when it comes to their schedules. This can lead to transfer students not fulfilling major requirements and missing out on educational opportunities like departmental honors.

Organizing classes while trying to fit in workshops that explain extracurricular activities is impossible when there are endless presentations to sit through. Transfer students are gaining nothing out of an orientation that is not properly organized to meet their demands. UCLA needs to better accommodate transfer students by expanding orientation to run for multiple days and reworking the workshops it offers to allow transfer Bruins to better acclimate to UCLA.

There are only two, sometimes three years total, that transfer students get at UCLA, and their orientation mirrors that short time.

Those years are characterized by career counseling and internship searches from the get-go. Transfer students have a limited time to prepare for graduation, and being told about any resources can help get them on track. But the location and existence of such resources don’t get communicated to transfers during orientation, because there is just no time to do so.

Alin Abrahamian, a fourth-year political science student and a volunteer at the Transfer Student Center, said the course enrollment process was fast because of the orientation day’s length.

“It was pretty stressful,” Abrahamian said. “But I got through it at the end of the day.”

Like Abrahamian, many transfer students often come out of orientation feeling overwhelmed and rushed, which is the wrong foot to start off on in a university as fast-paced as UCLA.

Jessica Kim, the Undergraduate Students Association Council’s Transfer Student Representative, said orientation can feel unproductive because students are not given time to reflect on all the information thrown at them throughout the day.

“One of the biggest things that my office is working on with the Transfer Leadership Coalition … is orientation,” Kim said. “There has always been this argument between ‘Should we have a one-day orientation or a multiple-day orientation?’”

One day is not sufficient for transfers to obtain all the tools they need for the entirety of their UCLA careers. Hasty departmental advisor meetings are of no use to students still unaccustomed to their major requirements. And nonacademic services such as care at the UCLA Arthur Ashe Student Health and Wellness Center, mental health resources and library operations are just some of the mysteries transfers have to figure out on their own time.

Even the resources that are offered can be unhelpful. Aïcha Conde, a fourth-year gender studies transfer student, said her NSAs were not equipped to assist her and others in her orientation group regarding transfer-specific needs, such as the Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum – a documentation of community college classes that count for general education credit at California public universities.

“It didn’t feel like there were enough (NSAs) to cater to each of us and really take the time to think about our majors, what we really want and the courses we really want,” Conde said.

UCLA needs to revisit the way the transfer orientation is organized and take into account what the students need to succeed at the university. This should include giving students more time for course planning and learning about the various campus services available to them, and investing more in the resources offered at orientation.

Transfers take on a tough task – learning to navigate UCLA and join organizations without the help of the two-year grace period they would have had as underclassmen.

While transfer students might already be familiar with the college system, unlike freshmen, that doesn’t necessarily mean they need less time at orientation. Of the fall 2018 enrolled transfers, 92 percent had transferred from California community colleges, which primarily work on the semester system.

And the processes and cultures of community colleges and UCLA are vastly different. A 12-hour orientation that students obviously have concerns with is clearly not the True Bruin Welcome UCLA should be giving its transfers.

Transfer students may spend half the time at UCLA that traditional students do, but that’s no excuse to give their orientation one-third the effort.

Editorial: Access Control staff shortages indicative of larger safety inefficiency

UCLA Housing Access Control has a problem.

Hint: it’s not with the access part.

Access Control, a UCLA Housing unit that monitors the entry of residents into certain buildings between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. by checking photo identification, reported having vacancies for nearly half its positions at the start of the quarter. While vacancies are common at the start of fall quarter, this year’s number of open positions was significantly larger than those of previous years.

This news comes on top of the fact that Access Control is not implemented across all buildings on the Hill. Residential halls like those in De Neve Plaza and Sunset Village, for example, have no staffers closely monitoring the entry of individuals after 9 p.m.

UCLA Housing said last week it hired 25 new staffers to fill its 35-person shortage. But in light of recent safety concerns on the Hill and the lack of uniformity in Access Control on the Hill, we have to ask whether the decades-old system actually improves safety – and if so, how to expand it to the entirety of UCLA’s residential halls.

UCLA Housing started the practice of requiring students to present identification before entering residential halls in the late ’80s, following a number of reported campus sexual assaults. Consequently, the hours of Access Control were expanded and the procedure to enter a building as a guest became more comprehensive.

On one hand, it may seem the absence of this flow control because of staff shortages can directly put students at risk. Just last week, UCPD arrested a man after he vandalized a De Neve resident’s door and wrote incoherent ramblings on their whiteboard. The man was seen at De Neve Commons on multiple occasions, and even masqueraded as a student, per the director of Residential Education at UCLA.

Yet last week’s incident also underlines the nonuniformity of Access Control on the Hill. Housing staffers who swipe residents into their buildings at night are only present at a few major residential halls. De Neve is one such residential complex that generally does not have Access Control.

Compare this system to that of New York University, another large public university in a major city. At NYU every residential building has a safety officer monitoring the entry of students. Residents must also show their identity card to this officer to enter a building at any time.

UCLA Housing did not respond to a request for comment on how it determines the location of Access Control staffers on the Hill. Administrators previously told the Daily Bruin some residential areas have no Access Control because the numerous points of entry for such buildings makes them difficult to monitor – an unconvincing reason for not making security uniform on the Hill if Access Control was shown to be effective.

However, there isn’t clear evidence residential hall entrances without staffers guarding them are generally more prone to the entry of outside individuals. This, coupled with the fact that student fees are invested in the residential hall security program in spite of its deficiencies, make it all the more crucial that UCLA Housing examine the merits of having Access Control.

In theory, yes, Access Control controls access on the Hill. Without proof, though, it may, for all we know, just be another decades-old pointlessly perpetuated program.