Daily Bruin – Page 35

New cannabis advisory board met with controversy on campus

A newly established policy advisory board will oversee cannabis-related events and research on campus.

The University of California released two memorandums outlining requirements for cannabis-related research on campus and potential risks of receiving funding from businesses that profit from marijuana-related activities.

UCLA established the Cannabis Advisory Board in April, which is responsible for drafting policy and disseminating information about cannabis-related research and activities, in response to the two memos, said Vice Chancellor Ann Pollock.

Although California Proposition 64 allows for the recreational use of marijuana, the UC is required to adhere to federal regulations regarding the drug. If the UC violates federal regulations, it risks losing federal funding, according to memorandum 19-02, authored by Lourdes DeMattos, associate director of Research Policy Analysis & Coordination.

Memorandum 18-01 states researchers who plan on cultivating or distributing cannabis must receive the drug through the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and receive approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Researchers must also receive permission from the Drug Enforcement Administration to conduct their studies.

However, memo 18-01 also states research about cannabis that does not include the distribution, cultivation, use or possession of the drug are not subject to the same regulations.

News of the policies established in the memos as well as the creation of the policy advisory board came as a surprise to Brent Gerson, a member of the UCLA Anderson Cannabis Business Association and master’s student in the school of management. Gerson said he found out about the policy while coordinating a cannabis-focused research summit.

The Cannabis Oriented Research Summit aimed to invite policy researchers to campus to discuss safe access to medication, disseminate information about misuse of the substance and destigmatize the industry, Gerson said.

However, while planning the event, Gerson said a faculty member informed him and his colleagues that the CAB needed to approve the event.

“We’ve never heard of this Cannabis Advisory Board because it doesn’t exist,” Gerson recalled saying to the faculty member.

Gerson said some of the UCLA policy’s restrictions include a ban on cannabis industry-sponsored research or events.

“We want the Anderson administration to rise up and help us fight this policy of the central UCLA administration,” Gerson said.

He also said he thinks the policy could potentially impede progressive cannabis research at UCLA, and does not align with the interests of California voters.

“The voters of California voted in favor of legalizing cannabis, and we derive a tremendous amount of tax revenue from cannabis, and cannabis is going to be one of the largest growing industries of the next decade,” Gerson said.

Maha Haq, founder of the UCLA CannaClub and a fifth-year sociology and mathematics student, said she understands why the university needs to impose regulations on cannabis industry presence on campus.

“I feel, like a lot of the students, we have an understanding that this is still a federally illegal substance, and these rules were instated by a research vice chancellor, so we understand that to maintain federal funding for research, you have to pass these kind of measures,” Haq said.

She added that the policy will not stop her student organization from informing others about cannabis and the industry, especially on other campuses.

“We’re not concerned, we understand that this is formality, to maintain funding for research, and it is still a federally illegal substance and for public schools,” Haq said. “We understand it.”

Pollock said CAB is currently composed of only faculty and administrators, but plans to seek input from other experts on campus going forward.

Although Haq said she understands the rationale behind the policy, she would prefer having student representation on the board in the future.

UCLA study finds schools across the country are becoming increasingly segregated

American public schools are increasingly segregated along the lines of race and income, a study found.

A report from the Civil Rights Project at UCLA and the Center for Education and Civil Rights at the Pennsylvania State University, which was published in May, found racial and economic segregation is intensifying and spreading among American public schools due to demographic changes and a stall in desegregation regulations.

The report examined segregation in American schools in observance of the 65th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, which deemed racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional.

California has the most segregated Latino student population nationwide, with 58% of Latino students attending intensely segregated schools, according to the report. The study defines intensely segregated schools as those in which 90-100% of the student population is nonwhite.

The report found the share of intensely segregated schools more than tripled from 1988 to 2016, to the point where one out of five schools counts as intensely segregated, said Jenn Ayscue, an assistant education professor at North Carolina State University and co-author of the report.

Nationally, 40% of black students and 40% of Latino students attend intensely segregated schools, she added.

Gary Orfield, a professor of education, law, political science and urban planning at UCLA and co-author of the report, said he thinks progress made toward desegregation since the civil rights movement has largely been erased.

“We are back to the periods of the late 1960s in terms of levels of segregation,” Orfield said. “We’ve lost all the progress we made since the time of (Martin Luther King Jr.’s) death and we are going backward steadily.”

Orfield said the Latino population in the United States has quintupled since the 1970s, from 5% to 26%, due to factors including increased immigration and decreased domestic white birth rates.

These changes have led to residential segregation among communities, particularly among black and Latino students, he said. Residential segregation increases segregation within individual school districts because students are assigned to districts based on their residential locations, Orfield added.

Ayscue said the study found desegregation efforts in state and federal levels have stalled because schools are no longer legally required to desegregate.

“When (school) districts are released from court-ordered desegregation, they also lose their focus on desegregation efforts, and without actively trying to maintain desegregation, schools often resegregate,” Ayscue said.

Another factor contributing to increasing segregation is school district secessions, said Erica Frankenberg, an education professor at Penn State and co-author of the report. Communities sometimes secede from larger countywide school districts, creating school district boundary lines that expand segregation in schools, she added.

Frankenberg said to reverse segregation, she thinks school districts and governments need to work together. She said state and local governments can aid in these efforts by incentivizing cross-district enrollment and collaborations.

She added she thinks all branches of the government need to work together to create permanent housing integration efforts to avoid segregated communities. However, she said these efforts require sustained bipartisan political effort, which she believes is currently absent.

Ayscue said she thinks it is also important for school administrators and superintendents to understand whether their school assignment plans facilitate desegregation or exacerbate segregation.

Decades of social research have shown segregated educational systems have negative social impacts, Ayscue said. Segregation is linked to systematically unequal education opportunities and outcomes, she said.

Ayscue said racial minority segregated schools have less experienced and qualified teachers, higher teacher turnover rates, higher student mobility and fewer opportunities to take advanced programs such as Advanced Placement courses. These factors lead to higher dropout rates and lower graduation rates.

Black and Latino students often experience double segregation, or segregation on the basis of both race and income, Orfield said. Schools that are doubly segregated have fewer resources and opportunities for students, he added.

These schools also maintain weaker connections with colleges compared to high schools that enroll predominantly middle-class white and Asian students, Orfield said.

About half of Asian students and about a third of white students are in the nation’s best high schools, compared to about 5% of black and Latino students, he said. This may have a drastic effect on the college admissions process, Orfield added.

Conversely, desegregation is associated with a number of benefits, Ayscue said. A desegregated setting is associated with higher academic achievements, stronger critical thinking skills, reduction in prejudices and increased friendship across racial groups, she said.

Studying in an integrated setting also shows long-term benefits, Ayscue added. Students who attend desegregated schools are more likely to work and live in desegregated environments and have greater civic engagement, better economic outcomes, less likelihood of incarceration and better health outcomes, she said.

Orfield said he thinks the rhetoric and actions of President Donald Trump’s administration have made people more aware of segregation.

“I think people are realizing that we are in a dangerous time as race relations in this country with the polarization and racism of the Trump era, and they are beginning to recognize that schools are one of the only places that we have to prepare people for different outcomes,” Orfield said.

Frankenberg said the different branches of government must cooperate in order to make policies that address school segregation, as they did to initially desegregated schools following the Brown decision.

“For me, that was a really important example about how widespread change can happen in a very little time period,” she said. “But that was a time in which we had all branches of the federal government working together and I think an important lesson is that we can’t do this piecemeal, it has to be a comprehensive effort.”

Homelessness increases 12% in past year despite policy allocating funding for relief

Homelessness in Los Angeles County increased by 12%, according to a report released jointly by the city and county Tuesday.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority found the county homeless population grew from 52,765 to 58,936 between January 2018 and January 2019. The number of people affected by homelessness is the highest since 2007, when the homeless population excluding Long Beach, Glendale and Pasadena was 68,608.

Volunteers for LAHSA and local partner organizations conducted the annual count late January. Each city district conducts its own count and neighborhood councils within each district combine their tallies for the overall count.

The homeless population in City Council District 5, which includes Westwood, rose 23% from 883 individuals in 2018 to 1,087 in 2019.

The results show a reversal of most of the progress found in the 2018 report, which recorded the county homeless population decreased by 4% from 2017.

The report showed the greatest increase among the unsheltered homeless population, which grew by almost 5,000 in the county and over 200 in district five.

Sean Wright, a spokesperson for LAHSA, said special teams also survey areas, such as riverbeds, inaccessible to volunteers to ensure the report accounts for all areas covered by the federal census.

The surge in homelessness in LA comes despite recent proposals to combat homelessness, such as Measure H, which county residents passed in 2017 to provide funding for new homeless units and programs. The report showed the homeless population housed in facilities funded by Measure H almost doubled since 2015, with 21,631 people receiving permanent housing placements in 2018.

Another measure, Proposition HHH, passed in November 2016 and allocated $1.2 billion for housing. The city used the funds to build 5,303 new housing units, over 1,000 of which are scheduled to open next year.

Lisa Chapman, president of the Westwood Neighborhood Council and co-chair for the WWNC Homelessness Task Force, said the task force is working on a program modeled after St. Joseph’s Center, a nonprofit organization in Santa Monica, to provide critical services such as psychiatric care and case workers to the homeless in Westwood.

However, the Westwood program faces challenges because the homeless population demographics differ between Westwood and Santa Monica. Chapman said Westwood’s homeless population is less likely to seek help than the homeless population in Santa Monica.

Chapman also said Westwood saw limited benefits from measures creating temporary housing projects because there is no space to build temporary homeless shelters in the neighborhood.

“We’re such a congested area that there’s not a lot of free space to look at for bridge housing,” Chapman said. “People become resigned after being on the street for a long time.”

Chapman that added volunteers for the 2019 count had difficulties making an accurate tally of the homeless population in Westwood.

She said park officials told homeless individuals to leave the Westwood Park on the night of the count, making it difficult for volunteers to keep track of who had been recorded.

The report was initially scheduled for release May 31, but was instead released June 4. Several city organizations advocating for homeless people claimed LAHSA attempted to reduce the impact of the report by delaying its publication.

Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, said in a press release Sunday he thinks the delay afforded public officials time to portray the results more positively.

“The official response on homelessness simply does not correlate to the crisis we face and our elected officials just continue to move at the speed of government,” Weinstein said. “It’s a national disgrace.”

Wright did not respond to questions regarding the delay.

The 2020 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count is planned for Jan. 21-23. Volunteers can register for the upcoming count on LAHSA’s website.

Second Take: Boycotting is film industry’s right move to protest Georgia’s ‘heartbeat’ bill

Georgia has housed many of film and television’s iconic on-screen battles.

It’s where the Avengers fought Thanos, Rick Grimes faced off against the walking dead and Eleven and friends defeated the Demogorgon. But in the upcoming months, Georgia will become the battleground for a very different fight.

Numerous states have ramped up their attack on reproductive rights by imposing a litany of restrictions on abortion. Many of these restrictions have taken the form of legislation misleadingly titled “heartbeat” bills, which state that abortions cannot be performed after fetal cardiac activity can be detected. In May, Georgia became one of many states to pass such legislation.

The term “fetal heartbeat” is meant to evoke a strong emotional reaction, but the “heartbeat” referred to does not actually come from a beating heart, according to gynecologist Dr. Jennifer Gunter in a Planned Parenthood article. Instead, it refers to a two-to-four-millimeter thickening on the margin of the yolk sac, known as the fetal pole. Its electrically induced flickering, as described by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, can occur as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, which is often before many people realize they are pregnant.

Georgia is not the only state to pass this misleadingly titled bill – several other states have passed legislation with similar language. However, Georgia is distinctly situated because of the film industry’s prevalence within the state, which has led to calls for film companies to boycott the state and move productions elsewhere. While it is absolutely imperative to push back against draconian measures such as Georgia’s law, it is also important to acknowledge the human cost of doing so, even as many in Hollywood take principled stands.

Over the past 15 years, Georgia has become a major filming spot because of the tax incentives that it offers productions, said UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television lecturer Tom Nunan. Additionally, Nunan said a large creative community has developed there, comprised of seasoned crew members who work on the various productions within Georgia. Many of Hollywood’s biggest productions were filmed in Georgia, from “Avengers: Endgame” to “Stranger Things.”

Last week, Disney’s CEO Bob Iger said it would be “difficult” for Disney to continue production in the state if the law survives court challenges, joining Netflix, WarnerMedia and NBCUniversal in speaking out against the law. Several productions, including Kristen Wiig’s new comedy and Amazon’s upcoming series “The Power,” have since pulled their previously planned filming from the state. Some prominent filmmakers, like Judd Apatow and Nina Jacobson, have also vowed to boycott Georgia for future productions.

Others have taken a decidedly different approach – Jordan Peele and J.J. Abrams began filming “Lovecraft Country” in Georgia shortly after the law was signed, but both have promised to donate their respective fees to organizations fighting the law.

The varying responses raise the question of what form of activism is most effective and most beneficial. If Hollywood were to boycott Georgia en masse, it could cost the state millions of dollars and apply pressure to the state legislature by both depriving the government of a stream of revenue and spurring people harmed by the boycott to act, Nunan said.

“(A boycott) is going to have the most immediate and most powerful impact on locals there, and anything else is a drastically less effective strategy,” Nunan said. “That’s the whole point of the boycott, is to send a very meaningful and painful message to the local economy saying if you adopt offensive bills and laws by the progressive Hollywood standard, you’ll pay for it.”

However, boycotts have a direct human cost – one that might be exacted on the wrong people. According to the Motion Picture Association of America, productions provide more than 92,000 jobs in the state, and losing those would be devastating to the local economy. Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams pushed back against the idea of a boycott as a be-all and end-all. She said legislators who passed the abortion ban did not care about the lives they were affecting by passing the law. Instead, she suggested productions use their economic influence to help fund activism within the state.

But the way in which both the law and the boycott are situated ensures that people will be hurt either way. Continuing to film in Georgia means that crew members will keep their jobs, but the state’s economy will continue to prosper despite the government’s actions. Alternatively, boycotting Georgia as a filming location will hurt additional people on top of those already impacted by Georgia’s law. It is crucial that companies consider both these factors in making their decision and act consciously to minimize the harm they inflict on individuals who are not responsible for the law.

But ultimately, pulling out of Georgia is the right move. Staying and allowing legislators to continue to reap the benefits of the film industry feels like a tacit endorsement of the policy. A boycott inflicts pain on crew members but passes that pain onto legislators, who will hopefully face electoral consequences in coming elections as part of a larger-scale protest that could provide long-term reproductive justice and freedom for generations to come.

Georgia’s law marks a monumental backslide, and it is imperative the film industry uses its economic might to make a statement. In the face of such obvious injustice, the film industry has a duty to plant themselves like a tree, look the state of Georgia in the eye, and as Sharon Carter said in “Captain America: Civil War” – a movie filmed in Georgia – “No, you move.”

Art to Heart: Artistry in plating techniques creates a feast for the eyes and the stomach

Art, the universal language, can transcend space and time to reach a diverse audience. We hear this all the time, but do we truly feel the weight of these words? A cloud of elitism envelops the “art world,” alienating the perspectives of some while glorifying those of others. In efforts to challenge ideas that reinforce the intrinsic validity of one individual’s take on art over another’s, columnist Lisa Aubry will explore different creative spaces and outlooks on art and reconcile the fields of arts and sciences through discussions.

Plating and painting are as close in practice as they are in phonetics.

Infusing dishes with elements of color, texture and composition for aesthetic pleasure blurs the line between art and food. Food is not only stimulating for the palate, but for sight as well, said Christian Navarro, president and principal of the two Los Angeles-based Wally’s restaurants, which serve wine, specialty foods and gourmet dishes on seasonal cycles. During my visit to its Santa Monica location, and through conversations with Wally’s chefs and cheesemongers, I learned about the artistic craft of food preparation and presentation.

For Navarro, food expands beyond what is on the plate. From music to lighting, the dining atmosphere can instill comfort and ease. Such environments are necessary for intimate or amusing exchanges in which people can open up, Navarro said. In fact, he said he has experienced many pivotal moments in the presence of food because the shared sensory experience facilitates a feeling of bonding.

“All of my celebrations, all of my sadness, all of my victories, all of my losses were done at the dinner table,” he said. “You’re tasting the exact same thing I’m tasting, so now we can talk about it, ‘What does this mean for you?’”

Eating should not be a solitary experience, Navarro said, but rather an opportunity to learn new dimensions of a person by discussing their gustatory preferences. Just as in the viewing of artwork, the tasting experience is overlaid with emotional and intellectual communicative power and directed by the tone of the surrounding space.

Not only are the experiences between consuming food and art similar, but so are the physical arrangements. Sous-chef Alan Martínez said attention to detail – the placement of a flower petal or the tint of a dressing – is not to be underestimated in its contribution to the plate’s final look. The difference between a swipe or a smear of garnish will result in different moods and visuals for the beholder, he said.

“I place food in different directions to make your eye travel around the plate, and I will plate in uneven numbers because the eye wants threes,” Martínez said. “I like to tell the server to deliver the plate the way I had it facing me, and not the other way around so that person gets the same vision that I see.”

In one such dish Martínez conceptualized, Blue Prawns & Citrus, he grills three blue prawns on a Japanese robata grill and places them upon a bed of thinly sliced avocados and citrus. The dish is then coated in a sweet and sour pineapple Thai chili sauce and surrounded by rose petal powder. The melange of orange, green and red hues create a visually pleasing plate, while the crunchy prawns and viscous sauce complement each other for an exciting sensory experience.

Like artists, Martínez said chefs achieve signature styles across their cuisine. Personally, Martínez said he veers toward creating an “organized mess,” which pulsates with vibrant color while still hinting at purposeful placement. The stylistic methodology behind preparation and presentation therefore infuses the “what” of the food with a “why,” lending dishes emotional dimensions.

But the craftwork of food can be traced back further still to the production process –especially when it comes to artisanal cheeses. Like those sold at the Cheese Box, Wally’s cheese shop, international artisanal cheeses appear in all textures, colors and smells. In the same way a pigment’s chemical contents impact its hue and fade over time, a similar relationship transpires between the environment that shapes the cheese. An animal’s breed and diet will affect the cheese’s resulting flavor, said Joshua Younger, a manager in the cheese department.

“It’s not so much that artisanal cheese is more fancy, but that you’re going back to the way things were preindustrial, when cows were cared for, milked and grazing on fresh grass, different roots, flowers and nuts that fall to the ground,” Younger said.

Cheeses also contain different levels of lactic acids, fats and flavor, he said, depending on what animal they come from – such as cow, goat and even bison. Younger mentioned a few notes to tune into during a tasting: Animal, vegetal, mineral and microbial categories are just a few factors Younger trains cheesemongers to identify. In tasting a cow’s milk alpine-cave-aged cheese, for instance, he said one would encounter grassiness (vegetal), savory (animal) and a wet-stone or earthy flavor from the cave (mineral).

A symphony of flavors can emerge when these cheese notes pair with other foods, such as roasted nuts or wine. When curating cheese-wine duos, Younger said he prefers to pair by geographical proximity. He will match a cheese from Piedmont, Italy, with a wine from the area because both the grapevines and animals would have been nourished from the similar water sources and minerals, creating a natural coherence of flavors. But then again, everyone digests flavors differently.

“At the end of the day, no one can tell you how to eat your own food,” Younger said.

Despite some loose guidelines, no wrong answers really exist in the highly subjective act of tasting and pairing cheeses. Recall the “Ratatouille” scene when the rat chef, Remy, pairs a strawberry with cheese, evoking bursts of sound and color in his imagination. As Navarro said, it is the universally pleasing experience of enjoying the flavors that forges bonds between tasters. If a single picture is worth a thousand words, imagine what just one bite entails.

Student’s senior project fuses flashlights and audience interaction

Flashlights will uncover a pattern of animated, distorted glass on a wall of the Broad Art Center.

Using the wall of the main stairwell at the front entrance, Nate Mohler will use three projectors that reveal patterns and animations as the audience interacts with the piece. The fourth-year design media arts student’s project will be a part of the design media arts “Pressed for Space” senior showcase starting Thursday at the Broad Art Center. Inspired by the classes he’s taken on projections and their increasing use in Los Angeles, Mohler said he aims to urge people to recognize projections as an art form.

“My personal draw to projection as art is how much of a delicate experience it is,” Mohler said. “Projection art is temporary in nature, and at some point the light must go out and the building or object will go back to being itself.”

Mohler’s first projection for a school project featured student-submitted quotes on mental health and allowed people to spray-paint a wall with virtual-reality technology. Two USC students then utilized his VR spray-painting concept and projected their work onto a building. Mohler said their success led him to make his own large-scale version to project at UCLA, focusing on projections as art forms rather than just for commercial purposes.

“(The USC exhibit) paved the way, but I said I can totally do this and better – something more meaningful and something more conceptual,” Mohler said.

Mohler’s projections will utilize the entire staircase wall at the front entrance of the Broad. Participants can use 3D-printed flashlights – whose movements are tracked by VR technology – in order to reveal hidden patterns that will be projected onto the wall. Mohler coded each pattern, some of which simply augment the wall with 3D grooves and cracks, while other patterns include animated, distorted glass.

When creating the patterns, Mohler said he first considers the space. Because the Henri Matisse sculptures rest near the wall, he wanted his patterns and overall projection to contrast with the traditional design of the early 20th-century sculptures, he said. He then draws from his coding skills, ensuring the animations and patterns complement the wall yet keep the texture of the concrete visible.

“A lot of the time when I do any kind of design, I (try to) be impactful but also fun and playful and learn about it,” Mohler said. “I always pull from different parts of my own life, making that balance of art and something people can understand.”

Unlike traditional projection-mapping and video art, Mohler’s project relies on audience interaction – otherwise, the wall will remain blank, said Casey Reas, professor of Mohler’s capstone project class. The projection’s incorporation of interactive flashlights required Mohler to conduct tests, which helped him determine which patterns would work best and how smoothly people can engage with the project, Reas said.

Mohler said he highlighted audience participation because of his experiences interacting with art, including his own virtual spray-painting piece. Viewers can engage with the exhibit, evolving the piece to be more game-like; even a child could understand and take part in it, he said.

“Having this interactive element where a person can come in and alter, that is (a) really interesting relationship between the art and the person,” Mohler said. “Now they have an impact.”

The project is currently designed so participants will have individually tailored experiences when engaging with the exhibit, said Luke Mombrea, a fourth-year music student who designed the sounds paired with the projections. As participants uncover the patterns, they also listen to ambient noises that differ depending on the headphones they choose to wear, he said, allowing viewers to immerse themselves in their own atmosphere. The noises embody a nature theme and include sounds of waves and fire crackling, Mombrea said.

“One of the things special about ambient music is because there’s less rhythmic and melodic content, it leaves you a lot of space to form your impression about what the music means and what the visuals mean,” Mombrea said.

Though projection work is an evolving medium, Reas said Mohler’s project considers that architecture can be animated and forces people to think differently about space. Mohler said more and more people are using projections today and he hopes people realize that projections imbue boring, everyday objects and spaces with life and emotion.

“(Art is) not just paints on paper but also light and projection, and not just tech and something fancy like VR,” Mohler said. “I think there’s always a wow factor, but I want something more than a novice approach to technology.”

USAC recap – June 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 the Bruin Viewpoint Room and are open to all students. Watch a livestream of the meetings on the USAC Live! channel on YouTube.

Public Comment:

Representatives from California Public Interest Research Group at UCLA said CALPIRG is launching a new initiative to ban plastic waste in California and continue its campaigns to save the bees, promote zero hunger for college students and increase textbook affordability.
Students advocated for a referendum to add an undergraduate student worker representative to the council.

Special Presentations:

UCPD Lt. Kevin Kilgore said he encourages students to be careful while walking home from the final Undie Run of the year.
A second-year computer science student said he is working on an online platform where students can find a centralized database of student groups on campus. He said the platform will be comparable to other sites such as Bruinwalk, and will officially launch at the end of the month.

Agenda:

The council allocated a total of $2,730 from the contingency fund to non-USAC groups.
The council appointed Siena Villegas, a second-year business economics student, as an ASUCLA board of directors undergraduate representative.
The council appointed Alexis Wells, a second-year political science and African American studies student, as an ASUCLA board of directors undergraduate representative.
The council appointed Jackelyn Avendano, a fourth-year political science student, to the Student Initiated Outreach Committee.

The council appointed Stephanie Martinez, a third-year Chicana and Chicaco studies student, to the Campus Retention Committee.
The council appointed Breanna Aguilar, a third-year gender studies and Chicana and Chicano studies student, to the SIOC.
The council appointed David Minasyan, a second-year psychobiology and economics student, as Finance Committee vice chair.
Cultural Affairs Commissioner Kelechi Iheanacho appointed Ngoc Nguyen as CAC Arts Restoring Chair Fund Chair.
External Vice President Johana Guerra Martinez appointed Eduardo Perez as campus organizing director for the EVP office.
Martinez appointed Kaila Ralph as Legislative Affairs director for the EVP office.
Academic Affairs Commissioner Naomi Riley appointed Amado Castillo to the Writing Success Program.
Council members discussed the amount of time council should take to put resolutions into action. Lalo Velazquez, USAC general representative, said he thinks the council should acknowledge past resolutions more. Facilities commissioner Lily Shaw said she thinks resolutions passed by USAC do not hold much weight because the administration can ignore them. President Robert Watson said resolutions can be more impactful if they ask for more tangible things from the administration as opposed to reiterating sentiments from the council.
The council approved their summer guidelines, which includes who will chair the meetings and how the agenda will be disseminated to the public.

Reports:

Watson said he recently met with Chancellor Gene Block and spoke with him about his office’s blue book initiative, which seeks to provide blue books for students at no cost. He added that his office met with Suzanne Seplow, assistant vice chancellor of student development, and other administrators to ask that student housing applications be more queer and trans-inclusive. He also added his office will be hosting a student government meeting with several universities.
Internal Vice President Kimberly Bonifacio said the Campus Safety Alliance is asking UCLA administration for an extension of the comment period for policies 133 and 890.
Riley said her office met with Academic Senate representatives to discuss the undergraduate senate appointment process.
Campus Events Commissioner Tara Steinmetz said her office is hosting an event with YouTuber Cody Ko on Thursday.
Shaw said her office is going to implement a reusable container system on the Hill and has spoken to administrators about the initiative.
Student Wellness Commissioner Mihika Sridhar said her office will hold a week-long photo exhibit in the Kerckhoff Art Gallery meant to promote body positivity.