GSA recap – Nov. 7

The Graduate Students Association is the voice of graduate students on campus. The association meets for forum every three weeks and takes positions on current issues affecting graduate students. Forum meetings are at 5:30 p.m. in the Global Viewpoint Lounge in Ackerman Union.

Agenda

  • Michelle Viorato, GSA vice president of external affairs, said the University of California Graduate and Professional Council granted UCLA conditional membership until December of this year. Viorato added that she wanted to introduce GSA members to UCGPC before bringing forward the UCGPC charter for vote at the next forum. UCGPC works to set up policy statements and stances specifically for graduate students.
  • The association discussed payment issues graduate students have had with UCPath. Alec Vinson, forum representative from Math and Physical Sciences Council, said students received incorrect payments, if they were paid at all. Many delegates said they shared similar experiences. Eric Hu, GSA vice president of internal affairs, called on representatives to collect a list of grievances with their councils to be compiled at the next forum.

Officer Reports

  • Michael Skiles, GSA President, said he wanted to focus on integrating issues facing broader Westwood and UCLA with his People First initiative, an effort to make both Westwood and UCLA more pedestrian friendly. He said he hopes to get more bike lanes built and develop more pedestrian right-of-way zones.
  • Skiles also summarized housing affordability concerns among graduate students over the last few years. Skiles added that GSA should be urging the university to review its funding priorities.
  • Hu said the association hired a new finance director with regular business hours.
  • Viorato said her office had a meeting with other UC leaders to create an advocacy strategy for international students, in response to a new proposal by the Department of Homeland Security to change F1 visas to allow a specific amount of time for international students to stay in higher education.
  • Viorato added she will be working with the United Auto Workers Local 2865 to potentially decide on a graduate student representative for a future meeting with UCPath representatives.
  • Viorato also added her office is helping a Mothers of Color in Academia de UCLA representative create a systemwide committee that will prioritize child health care facilities.

Seniors leave men’s water polo revitalized, with team remaining in capable hands

The Bruins waved goodbye at their shot at becoming back-to-back champions.

UCLA men’s water polo (23-5) bowed out of the NCAA championship in the semifinals Saturday, failing to defend last year’s title. The Bruins, who were the preseason No. 1 and projected to win the MPSF, fell short of the lofty expectations.

“For me, the hardest part is not getting this one done,” said coach Adam Wright. “I believe there was a lot of lessons learned over the season where we let some things go, and that’s on me. It’s my job to make sure we don’t have those slip-ups.”

The 8-7 loss to USC was UCLA’s second semifinal exit in three years, as the 2016 team fell during the same stage while trying to defend its 2015 title.

UCLA finished 3-5 against its Big Four rivals – champions USC, runners-up Stanford and California. All five of the Bruins’ losses were by two goals or fewer.

Senior attacker David Stiling, who was an honorable mention All-MPSF member, said the Bruins were competitive every outing this year, but UCLA’s late-game struggles came back to haunt the team.

“We had a lot of ‘What if?’ moments,” Stiling said. “We probably lost three or four games this year in the last 20 seconds or even less. You wonder if those turn out the other way. It’s tough to imagine ‘What if?’”

Although UCLA’s only losses came against Big Four teams, the Bruins lost to the Trojans in the final 20 seconds and fell to the Cardinal after a last-second shot, both during the regular season.

The Bruins finished with six players with over 30 goals on the season, led by sophomore Nicolas Saveljic with 51 goals. Six of the seven Bruins with at least 20 goals this season were either freshmen or sophomores, and will return next season.

UCLA will return five of its six All-MPSF recipients next season. First-team selection redshirt junior goalie Alex Wolf will return for his final year.

The Bruins will also bring back second-team members Saveljic and sophomore utility Evan Rosenfeld, as well as honorable mentions freshman attacker Jake Cavano and sophomore center Quinten Osborne.

Senior attacker Austin Rone said this season’s freshman group left a lasting impression on the fifth-year player no other group has.

“It was nice getting to know a new group, (because) this freshman class has been far different from anyone I’ve ever seen come through the program,” Rone said. “I won’t remember every game, but I’ll for sure remember those guys.”

UCLA will lose Rone, Stiling, defender Warren Snyder and attacker Kent Inoue. The four redshirt seniors will graduate boasting a 128-15 record during their five years as Bruins. The senior class redshirted in 2014, played its first games during UCLA’s undefeated season in 2015 and earned their second ring as active players last year.

Wright said the seniors – who have been on three championship teams in five years – should be proud of their careers as Bruins after reviving a program that had not won a title since 2004 before they arrived at Westwood.

“The seniors in this class – what an amazing group,” Wright said. “They really have nothing to hang their heads about.”

The Quad: What is the key to success? For some, it’s the embrace of failure.

Failure is a word that is as vague as it is terrifying.

According to an article in Psychology Today, the fear of failure is defined as “the emotional, cognitive and behavioral reaction to the negative consequences you anticipate for failing to achieve a goal.” The article also lists several reasons for why we fear failure.

First, it’s embarrassing. Next, some people believe that their failures will let down the people they care about most. Additionally, and possibly the most debilitating, is the idea that our failures define us. According to the South African College of Applied Psychology, we are scared to fail because failure is directly linked to our sense of self-worth. In order to protect our image, we need to believe that we are competent and we need to convince others of this as well.

This is why, according to Psychology Today, after repeated failures, negative thoughts like “Maybe I’m just not smart, skilled or talented enough to succeed” infiltrate our minds. This mindset results in us either not trying at all to reach our goals or significantly lowering our standards of success, because not pursuing an important goal is less painful than finding out that we are not competent enough to achieve it.

No matter where it stems from or how devastating it may be, we must keep in mind that failure is inevitable and can be overcome. In the moments immediately following a failure, we should build up a sense of grit, and use it to quickly pull us out of our slump and learn from the experience.

Now, if you just Googled the word “grit” and are confused as to why I am asserting that we use “small, loose particles of stone or sand,” to overcome our failures, you were not alone.

What I am referring to is the sense of “grit,” defined by psychologist Angela Duckworth as the combination of unwavering passion and perseverance, regardless of the obstacles one might face.

Grit explains why, when confronted with the possibility of failure, some of us work twice as hard while others head straight for the door.

Duckworth wrote in her book “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” that her obsession with grit began when she visited the U.S. Military Academy, where each year, over one thousand new cadets go through a grueling seven-week training regimen before entering freshman year.

After discovering that a small number of cadets do not make it through the regime, Duckworth became determined to find out why this was the case.

She left West Point and conducted several interviews with leaders in business, medicine and law, where she discovered that the highly successful were unusually resilient and hardworking.

With this insight, Duckworth returned to West Point to give the cadets what she termed “the grit scale,” a simple written survey that essentially measures perseverance. In the survey, the cadets were asked to identify with statements such as “Setbacks don’t discourage me,” “I don’t give up easily” and “My interests change from year to year.”

Grit turned out to be an astoundingly reliable predictor of who made it through and who did not.

In order to make it through something as mentally and physically challenging as the West Point regimen, one must be able to embrace the high possibility of failure and persevere. The less gritty cadets found it far easier to throw in the towel after a few especially difficult training sessions.

The takeaway from Duckworth’s study is that the cadets who made it through the regime failed as many times as the dropouts, but did not allow those failures to define them. They were able to quickly remind themselves that they are imperfect human beings and learn from their mistakes moving forward.

Now, UCLA may not be as intense as a West Point regimen, but Duckworth’s study shows that with grit, failure is not something to fear, but rather something that we can overcome and grow from.

If you are looking for ways to become grittier during the trying times of finals week, Duckworth explained how we can achieve it in an interview with The New York Times.

First, we must consider what we are interested in. Only after discovering and deepening that interest can we do the “difficult, effortful and sometimes frustrating practice that truly makes us better.” In addition, we must also maintain a sense of hope or resilience, even in the face of setbacks.

In an interview with the blog Farnam Street, Duckworth said, “World class experts tend to be gritty and talented. You can model what they do. … They work on weaknesses, not strengths. They’re comfortable being uncomfortable. … They’re attempting challenges that are too high. They’re getting feedback.”

In the same interview, Duckworth also explained that when it comes to dealing with failure, we should embrace it as a necessary part of success. Leaders tend to work outside of their comfort zone. They work more when they are failing than when they are succeeding, and grow as a result, she said.

According to Duckworth, we should embrace what we learn from our failures. Don’t just think “I failed; I’m going to get back up and be resilient,” but rather “Why did I fail? What should I do so that I am less likely to fail next time, which is when I am going to get up again and do it.”

Submission: University shows hypocrisy in Rev. Lawson UCLA Medal ceremony

Last week, Chancellor Gene Block awarded Rev. James Lawson our university’s highest honor, the UCLA Medal, for his contributions to nonviolence and social change. The UCLA Medal has been awarded to many people who have, for better or for worse, changed the culture and the political climate we live in. These include novelist Toni Morrison, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, President Bill Clinton, and jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald.

But the award last week went to someone who has undoubtedly changed our culture and politics for the better. Rev. Lawson has been an unstoppable force for racial and economic justice in the U.S. Lawson is called the “architect of the American civil rights movement,” and has organized against racism and worker exploitation for more than half a century.

Block and UCLA tokenized Lawson’s enormous contribution and the various movements he represents by giving him the UCLA Medal.

The university’s award to Rev. Lawson is a mere symbolic gesture, as UCLA itself actively contradicts and undermines the values Lawson fought for by perpetuating racial and economic injustice by exploiting its workers.

The University of California is in contract negotiations with several labor unions that represent tens of thousands of workers. These unions are the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and AFSCME Local 3299, representing service and patient care workers, with University Professional and Technical Employees-Communications Workers of America 9119, representing lab technicians and health care employees, and University Council-AFT, representing academic librarians and lecturers.

The negotiations for each union, some dragging on for nearly two years, look very similar: The unions are fighting to secure wage increases that keep up with cost of living, protect their pensions and stop the UC from outsourcing their jobs to subcontractors.

Across the board, the UC is offering wage adjustments of 3 percent to AFSCME Local 3299 and UPTE-CWA 9119, while inflation in Los Angeles is at 4 percent – effectively giving pay cuts to its lowest-paid employees. Furthermore, the UC has gross pay inequities that occur along racial and gender lines. AFSCME Local 3299 released a report this year showing that black women get paid on average $3,946 less per year than their white men counterparts. These pay inequities begin in the hiring process – with the University hiring black women in lower-paying titles than white men – and are then reinforced by selectively promoting workers in ways that perpetuate racial and gender inequity.

Instead of admitting the racism and sexism inherent in its hiring practices and the pay disparities they create, the UC has responded with disrespectful denials that are easy to see through.

In other words, the UC and its campuses systematically undervalue the experience, labor and value of people of color – black women, especially – while claiming to champion the virtues of diversity and equality.

It’s hard to see these injustices as anything but the kinds of injustices Rev. Lawson has dedicated his life to fight. Any institution that pays black women less than white men for the same job and then denies it when presented with the statistical facts is an explicitly racist institution. We don’t need to belabor how this goes against the work of Rev. Lawson, an organizer who has fought against racial and economic injustice his entire life.

Moreover, Rev. Lawson has, for decades, been an organizer of various labor movements. He has particularly supported AFSCME workers for decades. For example, he had a key role to play in the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike, when sanitation workers – mostly black – sought to receive recognition of their union, AFSCME local 1733, after two workers were crushed to death in a garbage compactor. Rev. Lawson recognized that worker exploitation is facilitated by racial dehumanization and organized talks between the AFSCME 1733c leaders and Memphis officials. He recognized that same dehumanization in March when AFSCME Local 3299 went on strike here throughout the UC campuses.

The irony is that UCLA is awarding Rev. Lawson with its highest honor in the wake of the largest series of AFSCME strikes on UC campuses and at a time administrators have continued to deny workers the respect, dignity and fair contracts they deserve.

In light of the UC’s numerous moral deficiencies – failing to offer its workers decent wage increases, denying the racist and sexist pay inequities produced through its hiring and promoting practices and denying the dignity of its laborers – the UCLA Medal can only be viewed as a cynical public relations stunt that attempts to rebrand the university as aligning with the anti-racism and labor work of Rev. Lawson.

We have to call last week’s award what it is: The tokenization of a black movement and the struggle against a racist and capitalist system, which the UC – as one of the largest employers in the state – is part of.

The UCLA Medal award is a hypocritical, disingenuous and disrespectful show toward the legacy of social justice that Rev. Lawson embodies. It’s only part of a broader racist and sexist system which, apparently, UCLA has no problem turning its head from.

Hatun and Mohebbi are undergraduate members of the Student Labor Advocacy Project of UCLA.

Authors Elizabeth Gilbert and Cheryl Strayed discuss writing motivations at panel

Personal journeys lie behind the Hollywood hype for memoirs “Eat, Pray, Love” and “Wild.”

Before their major motion picture adaptations came the life stories of authors Elizabeth Gilbert and Cheryl Strayed. These stories were explored Sunday evening at Royce Hall during a panel discussion organized by UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance as a part of their “Words and Ideas” speaker series. Gilbert and Strayed discussed both the personal struggles that drove them to write their books and their respective experiences of trying to convey their journeys in their works. The director of education and special initiatives at CAP, Meryl Friedman, said she wanted the conversation between the authors to grow organically, and for them to have an intimate conversation with the audience.

“They were allowed to have a conversation about anything that struck them,” Friedman said prior to the event. “What they choose to talk about is up to them in the context of the public conversation.”

CAP chose Gilbert and Strayed as guests partly because both of their stories were idealized and romanticized in the process of being turned into movies, Friedman said. She thought it would be resonant and interesting for the audience to learn firsthand about the raw forms of the life events that the films were based on because, too often, readers and viewers feel personally acquainted with artists.

Gilbert and Strayed began the panel by discussing how they first read each other’s works. Strayed described being on vacation with her husband when she first read “Eat, Pray, Love,” and Gilbert recalled comparisons of her book to Strayed’s memoir “Wild” when it was first released. They remarked that as soon as “Wild” was published, critics and publishers tried to set their books into competition with each other rather than healthy comparison. But Strayed identified the fundamental similarity between the two works – a physical journey.

Graduate screenwriting student Christina Borg said it was exciting to see two women supporting each other and providing insights during the panel. Borg commented that the affable way in which the two authors related to each other made them seem like each other’s cheerleaders.

“It’s a little overwhelming because they’re so in tune, and we can only aspire to be like them,” Borg said.

Gilbert said there was nothing joyful or simple about her own journey. She was married at 24, and intended to have children by 30. But, after her divorce, she took a trip to Italy when she was 34, which is cataloged in “Eat, Pray, Love.” Gilbert said she wanted to travel in the wake of her divorce, and the only reason she chose Italy was because she wanted to learn Italian. Meanwhile, Strayed said “Wild” was her attempt at writing the truth about her grief over her mother’s death. She took a trek across the Pacific Crest Trail, an approximately 2,600-mile route stretching across California, Oregon and Washington. Strayed said the grief over the death of her mother gave her the radical permission to set out alone into the wild.

“The thread that connects our books … is that in our deepest suffering, a journey was how we chose to heal ourselves,” Strayed said during the panel.

Shannon Reilly, a graduate screenwriting student, said she was impressed by Gilbert’s persistent attitude and approach to her creative work as expressed during the panel. Reilly said there’s generally an idea of what a writer should be and what a writer actually is. It was enthralling to see successful authors echo that same sentiment by describing how difficult it is to be a creative writer, she said.

Gilbert also took the opportunity to discuss her next book, “City of Girls,” which will be released in June, and follows a young woman who becomes a showgirl after dropping out of Vassar College. Much like “Eat, Pray, Love,” the goal of this new novel was to write a story of female agency – Gilbert described many of its female characters as being promiscuous, but said their lives were not disrupted by their promiscuity.

Although new projects are on the horizon, both women acknowledged that writing is a struggle for them even now. But Gilbert and Strayed said it’s important to finish what they’re working on before they worry about making it a great piece of work.

“I never made a promise to the universe to be a great writer,” Gilbert said. “I promised that I would be a writer.”

Satirical play portrays two polar opposite political views to urge tolerance

The black-and-white checkerboard stage floor in “The Mineola Twins” represents its lead characters’ inability to see the world in shades of gray, said Molly Livingston.

Livingston, a fourth-year theater student and one of the lead actresses, said the play focuses on the dangers of absolute opinions and seeing the world in black and white. The UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television’s production will run Tuesday through Saturday at the Black Box Theater in Macgowan Hall. The satirical play, written by Pulitzer Prize-winner and UCLA’s playwright-in-residence Paula Vogel, follows twin sisters from Mineola, New York, with opposite political views throughout the Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan administrations.

Adjunct associate professor and director of the play Judith Moreland said the play explores serious socio-political issues through satire, which Livingston said is expressed in the form of the characters’ extreme viewpoints. Moreland said she hopes it will help audiences find common ground rather than perpetuating division, and emphasizes the importance of sisterhood among women.

“Women, we need to work together. … It is the infighting that is holding us back a little bit,” Moreland said. “We need to find a way to talk to each other, otherwise we are going to destroy ourselves, and that is exactly what the play is about.”

Romy Bavli, a third-year theater student who plays Myra, one of the twins, said although the twins are labeled as “good” and “bad,” their evolution throughout the play allows the audience to sympathize with the characters. As the characters develop, she said she hopes the audience will realize people are more complex than they seem. Livingston, who plays Myrna, the other twin, said the characters become more obstinate in their beliefs as they age. The sisters’ extreme political views are satirized through intense, exaggerated dialogue, she said, and this humor allows the taboos around controversial topics to fade momentarily.

“It’s a cautionary tale about what you lose in life when you decide that you’re clinging to your one perspective,” Livingston said. “If we lead with love … and empathize, then how can you go wrong?”

Specifically, the twins are obstinate in their perspectives on women’s rights, Moreland said. Teenage Myrna does not believe a woman has agency, and wants to become a housewife, she said. Meanwhile Myra does not look to conform to society’s expectations and lives by her own rules. Bavli said her character dislikes conservative President Nixon while Myrna loves conservative women like Barbara Bush, who was perceived to have traditional values. She said the audience can see the extreme differences in the sisters’ views as Myra fights fervently for women’s rights and works at Planned Parenthood, while Myrna protests this fight for change.

The production’s satire stems from the extreme ideologies of both twins, Bavli said, since anything exaggerated tends to become comedic. Myra is a liberalist to the absolute extreme, and Myrna is a staunch conservative, she said, and their difference in opinion gives rise to absurd dialogue between them. In one scene, Myra vocalizes her support of abortion; in a pro-choice world, she says her son and his girlfriend wouldn’t have to choose between coat hangers or marriage if he gets her pregnant.

Bavli said the twins have an inner desire to connect despite their claimed hatred for each other. She said their relationship satirizes the United States’ political division through mirrored sentences. The twins say the same phrases in opposite contexts, revealing their contrasting, yet connected beliefs, she said. For example, she said they both say “we will never give this country back” in different circumstances.

“It’s just one of those plays that is, about 20 years later, so relevant still,” said Bavli. “I think people will always have this fear of the other and fear of people who think differently, or act differently, or live differently than them.”

Moreland said the play is a more accurate portrayal of women than the majority of industry productions. “The Mineola Twins” tells the story from the perspective of women and was penned by a female playwright, which can be uncommon since plays are often about men and written by men. She said women should stop fighting and embrace all ideologies so they can focus on advancing their rights. “The Mineola Twins” strives to satirize progressivism and conservatism alike in order to bring audiences together despite their political differences, she said.

“Our strength lies in our diversity and we need to embrace that rather than chastising it,” said Moreland. “We need to stop calling each other names and start working together.”

Financial aid’s lack of clarity, transparency makes university less accessible

It’s no secret that attending college is more expensive than it’s ever been.

As a public institution, UCLA has tried to be affordable to students regardless of their socio-economic status. While UCLA frequently touts the numbers of how many students receive aid, what it often glosses over is how complex and elusive the financial aid process is. From questions about the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, to concerns about aid options, students often are not getting the full picture of how the system operates.

Misinformation and the complexity of FAFSA may be why as many as 20 percent of students nationwide do not even attempt to fill out financial aid applications. Additionally, Federal Student Aid’s policies governing grant aid and loans – like when the initial aid estimate may change – are not exactly public information. Universities themselves only use summaries of the policy. The official summary – a 1,424-page read – is available via the FSA website. Official notices regarding the policy are posted via the Federal Register, but even then, it’s difficult to find the full text, and it’s impossible to determine what elements may be missing.

It’s not the university’s fault the policy is so inaccessible and confusing. In fact, the problem is not unique to UCLA at all: Most students are unaware of the policy that guides financial aid. And that lack of understanding could have a serious impact. Students’ aid amounts could be altered right before they have to pay tuition; they could be presented limited loan-type options, or the terms of the loan may be so confusing that they end up defaulting once they graduate.

“The university may alter an award as necessary, as indicated by the statement that accompanies each award, noting that it is subject to change,” said Claire Doan, a University of California spokesperson. “Financial aid awards are subject to modification due to a number of factors, including a change in fees, an adjustment to another award, a shift in the availability of funding, or a change in a student’s resources or the the family resources of a student.”

The way the policies are written is so convoluted that Susan Dimotakis, associate director of operations at UCLA’s Financial Aid and Scholarships office, said anyone would need a lawyer to interpret them. Dimotakis recommended students look at the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships’ websiteto learn the components of their financial aid awards.

But again, that’s just a summary of how the policy works.

This is especially alarming considering 85 percent of undergraduate students nationwide receive some kind of financial aid. Those students all have little knowledge about how their aid works, how the FSA has altered its policies over the years or the impact those changes could have on them. When students receive their initial award, they probably do not even understand the terms of their aid, which may be why so many struggle to repay their loans post-graduation.

The problem starts at the institutional level. Dimotakis’ exchange demonstrates just how little universities and students know about financial aid. If students and administrators do not understand the terms of aid, their rights or how FSA operates, they are at risk of being taken advantage of, which makes college even less affordable.

Last week, for example, the Associated Press found that one of FSA’s federal loan providers, Navient Corp., had been misleading students about their loan options. The company had only been presenting high-interest and high-debt loans to students in order to increase its profits, and misled students into delaying payment on their loans without informing them it would be costlier in the long run. As a result, about 762,000 students who used Navient loans are struggling to repay their debts.

What’s arguably worse is that the Department of Education hid that scandal from the public, even though it knew since 2017. It’s hard to hold people accountable when the public does not even know the specifics of federal student aid.

There are consequences to this general lack of knowledge. Forfeiture, delayed payments and high interest rates are partially why student debt nationwide has reached an all-time high of $1.5 trillion. That staggering number has caused Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to declare student debt a “crisis in higher education.” Rising debts, confusion about repayment of loans and ambiguous student aid policy may cause fewer students to attend college in the long term.

It may not seem like it’s a big deal that the policy is so elusive. It may seem like students only need to understand the parts that apply to them – like how many units they must be enrolled in to get grants or the conditions of their loans. But time after time, loan companies have profited off vulnerable students who thought they knew enough to accept the conditions of their loans. It’s clear students aren’t to blame here.

Federal reform is necessary. The Navient case has garnered the attention of members of Congress, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who thinks Congress should pass more consumer protection laws and simplify the FSA handbook. Universities need to also push for this reform.

Federal student aid is meant to make college education possible for students regardless of their socio-economic background. But until the policies are simplified, that aid may be hindering the affordability of college, not helping it.