Daily Bruin – Page 7

UC makes changes to admissions process in recent audit as response to scandal

UCLA students and professors said they are optimistic about the potential impact of the University of California’s recent changes to its admissions process to prevent admissions fraud.

The UC’s Ethics, Compliance and Audit Services initiated an audit of the UC’s admissions process in response to the Varsity Blues admissions scandal, in which parents helped their children cheat on standardized tests and gain admission to prestigious universities as student-athletes despite never having played their sports competitively.

The UC announced changes to its admissions processes and policies June 20 based on the findings of the audit, according to a UC press release.

The ECAS report identified several categories for improvement within the UC admissions system, including clearer documentation, improved verification protocols and stronger procedures.

The audit advised the UC to keep a clear documentation trail for evaluations supporting decisions for both regular admissions and admissions for athletes and special talent, as well as for monitoring donations to the university to prevent the donor’s influence on admissions decisions.

To improve verification protocols, the report recommended stronger procedures for identifying falsified admissions application information, verifying special talent applications and monitoring student-athletes’ participation in sports programs.

The report also recommended adding mechanisms to identify and manage potential conflicts of interest in admissions, improving IT system access controls to prevent misuse, strengthening the organization of the athletics compliance offices by changing the reporting structure and training new personnel.

UCLA is already working on the implementation of these suggestions, said Ricardo Vazquez, a UCLA spokesperson.

Gary Orfield, an education professor and co-director of the UCLA chapter of The Civil Rights Project, said in an email statement that a quick, transparent response to the recent admission scandals is essential.

“UCLA and other UC campuses allocate access to a great public benefit – access to some of the world’s great research universities where students can be prepared for everything,” Orfield said. “The public has every right to know whether this process was corrupted and what remedies have been put in place. As public institutions, they must respond to scandals with force and clarity.”

Patricia Gandara, an education professor and co-director of The Civil Rights Project, said if these recommendations are applied correctly with oversight, they should be effective.

Cases of admissions fraud and flagrant misuse are not very common, so strengthening the system is a proactive choice, she added.

“They’re taking the steps that I would take,” she said. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, the system works to be equitable. … I hope the students would understand that one, it’s unusual, and two, the University has stepped up very aggressively to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Aidan Arasasingham, a rising third-year global studies student and the director of legislative affairs in the Undergraduate Students Association Council, said he was glad the UC honed in on the admissions of students who fall outside the UC’s typical academic requirements, such as athletes. However, he added he would like to see action taken to make a UC education more accessible.

“The UC system is becoming increasingly more inaccessible given the fewer and fewer spaces in comparison to more and more applicants,” he said. “We have a system that has that level of inaccessibility and a high incentive for people to cheat. I do hope that both California and the UC look towards increasing access. I feel like that’s the root of the problem, when you have low access with high stakes.”

Like Gandara, Arasasingham said the audit is a step in the right direction and is likely to be effective, adding he thinks the audit was comprehensive and pointed out areas of weakness in the admissions system.

“The college admissions scandal was a wake-up call for the university community and students, and I’m glad that the university has taken such swift action in investigating and going forward with this audit,” he said. “I look forward to seeing to what extent this audit will be effective, but I’m still quite optimistic.”

Recommendations from the ECAS report are expected to be implemented by each of the UC campuses by the end of July. ECAS will track these plans and conduct a second audit in the next year, according to the audit report.

Vigil at UCLA calls attention to inhumane conditions at detention centers

Lisa Gantz spent a month during her medical training working at a legal clinic along the Texas-Mexico border, and visited several detention centers in the area. She said she is still haunted by what she saw.

“One of the ones that I visited was basically an old Walmart where they had ripped out all of the inside, and then there were just these rows and rows of bunk beds underneath fluorescent lights,” Gantz said.

Gantz, a pediatrician at the David Geffen School of Medicine, was one of several volunteers who helped to organize a vigil held July 12 at UCLA that protested the living conditions of undocumented immigrants in detention camps.

The vigil was hosted jointly by the Immigrant Youth Task Force at UCLA and UndocuMed Students and Allies at UCLA, both student groups that support undocumented and immigrant students at UCLA and in the Los Angeles area.

Detention centers have been reported by the Huffington Post to have inhumane conditions, in which detainees face physical abuse from guards and do not have sanitary drinking water. At least seven children have died in the past year while being detained.

To raise awareness about the conditions, organizers said they invited physicians from UCLA, who had visited detention centers, to speak.

Gantz said she visited detention centers where she saw children being severely mistreated.

“I met so many kids who were scared, alone; they only spent an hour a day outside,” she said. “They only had two phone calls per week.”

Gantz once met a 4-year-old boy who had spent three months traveling on foot with a relative from Central America to escape the violence in his home country, only to be detained at the border.

“Hearing a small child, a preschooler, talk about the violence that he had experienced, it just made it so clear to me that these children are not emigrating: They’re fleeing and they’re fleeing potentially deadly circumstances and violence in their home countries,” Gantz said. “They come here looking for our help, and putting them in these inhumane and unsafe centers is just horrifying to me.”

One of the speakers talked about her own mother’s deportation, while another discussed her grandparents’ experience being sent to a Japanese concentration camp in the United States during World War II, Gantz said.

Gantz said she believes students who attended the vigil were moved by the speakers’ stories and interested in learning what they could do to make a difference.

Mayra Lucas Ramirez and Yadira Bribiesca Leon, medical students and members of UndocuMed, said they hope the vigil inspired people to pay more attention to the issue of detention camps.

“I feel like sometimes events like these happen and raise awareness for a little bit and everyone cares for a little while, then they forget about it,” Lucas Ramirez said. “At the end of the day, nothing was resolved and these children are still in detention camps.”

Hearing about the conditions at detention centers from those who have actually experienced them allows for a greater degree of empathy and understanding than secondhand accounts do, Bribiesca Leon said.

“I feel that we might hear this stuff in the news or read the newspaper, but not until someone who’s lived it speaks about it, then we feel how real it is,” Bribiesca Leon said.

Several attendees at the vigil brought their children to stand in solidarity, Gantz said.

“To include them in that conversation and that greater conversation about how we can do better for all children, regardless of what country they were born in, was really inspirational,” Gantz said.

UndocuMed hopes to host an immigrant health awareness week at UCLA in November, as well as a panel of undocumented students to speak about their experiences.

Gantz said she believes it is important to dispel any misconceptions people have about detention camp conditions in order to raise awareness of the problem.

“I think that a lot of us have seen these stories and seen photographs and heard testimonials … (but) people are almost denying that it’s occurring or denying that it’s happening on the scale that it is,” Gantz said. “I think it’s really important that we force people to confront this ugly truth and realize the damage that we’re doing.”

Researchers release report tying methane to air toxins in Aliso Canyon gas leak

UCLA researchers found higher than average levels of various toxic air pollutants in residential areas near the largest gas leak in U.S. history.

In a study published in Environment International last month, researchers found that methane released in the 2015 Aliso Canyon blowout is linked to higher levels of other hazardous air pollutants in nearby communities such as Porter Ranch and Northridge.

The blowout was the largest human-caused release of methane in U.S. history. The gas leak lasted for four months until state officials announced it was permanently sealed in February 2016. Sixty-three percent of households in Porter Ranch reported symptoms such as nausea, migraines, bloody noses and respiratory problems persisting during and after the leak was permanently sealed, according to the study’s post-leak community survey.

Southern California Gas, the company which has owned the Aliso Canyon facility since 1973, reached a $119.5 million settlement with city, county and state officials last year, according to the Los Angeles Times. An investigation by a consulting company revealed the leak was caused by a corroded pipe saturated with groundwater, according to the California Public Utilities Commission.

Diane Garcia-Gonzales, a postdoctoral researcher at UCLA Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health and first author of the study, said her research team used tin canisters to sample air in residential areas near the gas storage facility. The researchers then analyzed the samples for a variety of potential pollutants including hazardous air pollutants, or HAPs, known to cause serious health problems and include carcinogens.

Researchers found that air samples taken for 24 hours had higher than average Los Angeles background levels of several HAPs such as toluene, which can damage the nervous system according to the Center for Disease Control. Further analysis revealed that elevated levels of toluene and other chemicals had a strong correlation with the higher levels of methane.

Daniela Semerjian, a rising third-year psychology and Spanish student who was born in Porter Ranch, lived just a short drive away from the gas facility. When the blowout occurred, she smelled gas wherever she went.

“There’s a big shopping center even closer to the facility, and you could really smell it there,” Semerjian said. “It was uncomfortable, I knew it was bad air and didn’t want to breathe.”

SoCalGas relocated more than 2,200 Porter Ranch families to safer areas following the leak, according to Los Angeles Daily News. Many of Semerjian’s friends’ families and neighbors temporarily moved to apartments in areas farther south, such as Glendale. Although her own family remained in Porter Ranch throughout, they set up large air purifiers sent from SoCalGas all over the house.

Although the HAP levels were below national and state health standards, Garcia-Gonzales said the air samples were taken more than halfway through the four-month process of plugging the leak. When methane levels were at their peak at the beginning of the leak, the HAPs could have also been within a more toxic concentration, she said.

Semerjian said her mother is prone to migraines, and her symptoms had worsened during the blowout. Her doctor said this was likely caused by the gas leak, she added.

There are few studies on the environmental and health effects of gas storage facilities because of a legal loophole which does not require gas companies to report what chemicals are used in storage facilities, Garcia-Gonzales said.

As of now, the oil and gas extraction industry is not required to report to the Toxics Release Inventory under the Environmental Protection Agency.

“As a researcher, you don’t know what to measure for because you don’t know what they’re using,” Garcia-Gonzales said. “We tried to measure everything we could think of, but there were still so many things we couldn’t.”

A court order for SoCalGas required it to implement a surveillance system in all of its gas storage facilities, including Aliso Canyon, as part of the settlement, Garcia-Gonzales added. However, the Porter Ranch community believed this measure was inefficient because SoCalGas would be controlling the monitoring, she said.

The Aliso Canyon facility monitoring includes real-time pressure monitoring and visual inspection of all wells, daily infrared thermal imaging to detect leaks, a methane monitoring system and community engagement with residents nearby, according to a SoCalGas media statement on the incident.

As of this month, 21 gas wells of the facility have been plugged and abandoned, and another 66 have passed safety inspection tests, according to the California Department of Conservation.

Semerjian said she and her family have discussed the possibility of another leak in the future, and still keep large air purifiers upstairs and downstairs running constantly.

UCLA should shake dust off earthquake safety education, preparations

With every tremble of the 7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake, many Californians wondered: “Is this going to be the Big One?”

To say that UCLA is in earthquake country is an understatement. With the Santa Monica Fault running through Westwood, the Newport-Inglewood Fault a stone’s throw away and the San Andreas Fault – the seismic giant – within striking distance, earthquakes are inescapable.

Despite this, earthquake preparation is rarely discussed among faculty and students.

Preparation for an earthquake is twofold: the physical gathering of supplies and the mental evacuation plan. Students are ready for neither. UCLA should help facilitate this planning and ensure that students at least consider the possibility of an earthquake before embarking on a four-year journey on potentially shaky ground.

“The ‘Big One’ is the terminology we use to refer to a magnitude 7.5 earthquake on the San Andreas Fault,” said earthquake expert and UCLA associate professor of geophysics Lingsen Meng. “Historically, we generally have big earthquakes in Los Angeles about every 100 to 180 years – the last one was in 1857.”

That being said, Southern California is well overdue for a Big One.

And when that time comes, there will be severe shaking, considerable damage and casualties in Los Angeles.

“We’re also not ready in terms of our infrastructure – it is not earthquake-proof,” said UCLA associate professor of civil and environmental engineering Scott Brandenberg.

In fact, many structures on campus are determined unsafe, such as Franz Hall, which is currently under construction, and Bunche Hall, a 12-story building held up by some stilts.

Building collapse is not the only outcome of an earthquake. There are often fires and gas leaks – not to mention being cut off from water supply, electricity, sewer systems and cellular networks.

And UCLA isn’t ready for such a disaster.

Brandenberg recommends that everyone have two weeks’ worth of water and canned food. But that could prove difficult for students living in the dorms and apartments, who can barely fit their belongings in the cramped living spaces – much less gallons of emergency water.

Brandenberg said that UCLA is responsible for a disaster plan, but faculty and staff are not trained about earthquake preparedness and protocol. According to Brandenberg, faculty receive annual training on sexual harassment, cybersecurity and lab safety, but general earthquake safety is left out of the mix.

And other University of California schools have done better. The UC Berkeley Office of Emergency Management is at least communicative with students about the necessity of emergency kits and general preparation.

Over 11,000 students live on the Hill, and those students rely on UCLA’s residence and dining halls for food and water.

But students cannot be expected to know what to do if their own leadership is keeping them in the dark. It is unclear whether UCLA will provide resources for students, or if students should store two weeks’ worth of food, water and iodine treatment kits in their dorm rooms.

“I don’t think UCLA is storing anywhere near the amount of water that would be needed,” said earthquake engineering expert and UCLA civil and environmental engineering professor Jonathan Stewart.

If students are expected to go into survival mode, it is a major oversight for UCLA not to prepare them for that. And with so little information given about what the plan is in an earthquake, students are left to wonder.

That is, if they even consider it.

Many students at UCLA who are out-of-state or international might have never experienced an earthquake before. And even California residents who are all too familiar with “Drop, Cover and Hold On” drills are ill-prepared for an earthquake.

Kaitlin Ryan, a rising fourth-year molecular, cell and developmental biology student experienced this firsthand at UCLA during the Ridgecrest earthquake.

“It was pretty crazy,” said Ryan, who was at her research lab. “I felt the building start to sway – it sounded like everyone opening and closing doors all at once and I started to see exit signs swaying and vents slightly opening.”

Although she grew up in California and has experienced earthquakes, Ryan said she does not store extra water and supplies in her apartment.

And preparation is not only physical, but also mental.

Emanuel Maidenberg, a clinical professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine and expert on the stress caused by natural disasters, said people can mentally prepare by walking through scenarios in their minds.

“The anxiety response is proportionate to the distance from the epicenter,” Maidenberg said.

While UCLA students might not feel much anxiety from the Ridgecrest earthquake due to the campus’s distance from the shaking, now is the time for UCLA leadership to step in and prepare students to prevent such anxiety when the epicenter is closer to Westwood.

Of course, preparing for an earthquake requires money, time and inconvenience – especially in the case of retrofitting buildings. But while the return on such preparations is not immediate, it would saves lives and millions of dollars in damaged infrastructure when the earthquake inevitably hits.

It typically takes a seismic event to jolt people’s attentions. In the aftermath of the Ridgecrest earthquake, UCLA can take advantage of this opportunity to eliminate any ambiguity and advise students on what actions they should take in the future.

Now isn’t the time to let earthquake safety slip through the cracks.

Screening series explores continued impact of runaway productions on Hollywood

Before World War II, most American films were created in Los Angeles.

But following the war, Daniel Steinhart said it was cheaper to film overseas than in Hollywood.

The assistant professor of cinema studies at the University of Oregon curated the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s screening series titled “Runaway Hollywood: Global Production in the Postwar World” at the Billy Wilder Theater through August 24. The event will feature classic films, such as “Roman Holiday” and “Mutiny on the Bounty,” which were handpicked by Steinhart.

The series is based on his book, “Runaway Hollywood: Internationalizing Postwar Production and Location Shooting,” which explores the impacts of runaway productions – post-World War II films shot internationally – that affected both Hollywood and communities abroad.

“The phenomenon of runaway productions seemed like such a major change for Hollywood production (and) it seemed like there was more to say,” Steinhart said. “I’m someone who’s always been interested in Hollywood, and I wanted to take this global perspective to Hollywood.”

The expression “runaway production” references a film shot mostly or entirely outside of the United States, using either American directors or stars but relying heavily on the local community to be the film crew and play most of the supporting and background cast, said Janet Bergstrom, a professor emerita and research professor in the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. She said Steinhart’s book definitively outlines what constitutes a runaway production, a term coined during the start of the era by labor unions and used among film scholars that was never clearly defined before.

While this definition typically only extends to films shot internationally, Steinhart said runaway films of today’s Hollywood can include those shot in the U.S. but not in Southern California.

Most productions chose to go abroad for financial reasons, such as tax incentives or foreign subsidies, Steinhart said. As a result, jobs that were originally concentrated in Los Angeles were outsourced to other locations around Europe, Asia and Africa.

Bergstrom said these films, like “Mutiny on the Bounty,” which was filmed on the island of Tahiti, are best described as transcultural, as filming abroad impacted both the communities in which they were filmed and Hollywood itself. With the rise of transcultural films, producers began thinking in a global context and distributing movies to international audiences, Steinhart said, but it was not without consequence.

“Productions (need) to think about the impact that they have on crews in other states, or impacts on foreign crews, even thinking about the environmental impacts of production that might be taking advantage of natural resources in locations across the United States or locations abroad,” Steinhart said.

Jobs in Hollywood became scarce as directors took their movies overseas, as films could easily exploit communities abroad. Movies like “Berlin Express” and “Decision Before Dawn” made use of World War II ruins in Germany as a backdrop, capitalizing on the destruction caused by the war, Steinhart said. Similarly, during the filming of “Mutiny on the Bounty” in Tahiti, protestors took to the streets as the production drove up gasoline prices and inflated transportation costs.

“It’s important to remember the cost that can come to local employment if films are going to be shot outside of Southern California,” Steinhart said. “There needs to be incentives and investments in keeping people locally employed and continuing to build infrastructure locally.”

However, while both Hollywood and the communities in which these films were shot faced detrimental repercussions caused by these productions, they also brought the world one step closer to viewers by bringing far-off countries and monuments to the wide screen, said UCLA Film & Television Archive film programmer Paul Malcolm. By incorporating famous landmarks like the Louvre Museum in “Funny Face,” Hollywood directors brought quaint Parisian streets in conjunction to noteworthy buildings to audiences who could recognize them, Malcolm said, adding a level of authenticity.

Steinhart said his event at the Billy Wilder Theater aims to present Hollywood in the context of a postwar history since the benefits and consequences of shooting productions internationally for global audiences continue to be relevant today, with an increased rise of popular filming locations outside Los Angeles in states like Georgia. Looking back at this era, Malcolm said viewers can see the precursors to modern movies like the Marvel and Transformers franchises, which continue to film around the world.

“So many of the issues that arose during the postwar era in terms of global production (are issues) we’re still grappling with today,” Malcolm said.

San Diego Comic-Con unites fans, studios, pop culture in single bound

About 135,000 people descended on the San Diego Convention Center this weekend to celebrate the 50th annual Comic-Con.

San Diego Comic-Con celebrates a wide array of pop culture media over four days every July. Like many conventions, panels were hosted by industry professionals either in celebration or with an aim to educate fans about different aspects of media creation. Many attendees cosplayed as their favorite characters, often stopping to take pictures with other fans, while production studios, including the likes of Marvel Studios, The CW and NBC, announced and previewed new series and films.

NBC, a sponsor of the convention, brought three comedy shows to host their own panels this year. “The Good Place” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” held panels for the second year in a row, but newcomer “Superstore” held its panel Thursday in front of an audience of over 2,500 people. The cast, including stars America Ferrera and Ben Feldman, as well as show creator Justin Spitzer, discussed some of the challenges involved in creating the show.

Nico Santos, who plays the character Mateo Liwanag, said he broke down crying while filming a poignant scene at the end of the last season in which Mateo is apprehended by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, but also said that his presence on the panel was “a good sign.” Spitzer said while the show was never meant to be a “teaching” show, it became known for tackling social issues like cultural appropriation and undocumented immigration. In response to a fan question, Ferrera described the difficulty of taking on the role of director of an episode this past season.

“You think it’s your job (as a director) to make it work,” Ferrera said. “But it’s really your job not to screw it up.”

As some studios take the opportunity to preview their new properties at Comic-Con, The CW presented its new drama series “Batwoman,” based on the popular comic book character whose alter ego Kate Kane is first cousin to the original caped crusader himself, Bruce Wayne, and is openly a lesbian.

The entire pilot was screened for attendees at the “Batwoman” panel Saturday, followed by a Q&A with series creator Caroline Dries and executive producer Sarah Schechter. When a fan asked about the possibilities of old or new villains being included in the show, Dries revealed that Burt Ward, who portrayed Batman’s sidekick Robin in the 1960s television show, will play a role in The CW’s superhero crossover event this upcoming season. The pilot showcased a high amount of action, with quite a deal of physical brawling for its protagonist.

“We keep the twists coming. The show is pretty fast-paced,” Dries said. “As we get to know her through Kate and as Kate is on this quest, that’s really where we’re going to be like, ‘Wow.'”

Other than panel rooms, much of the traffic at San Diego Comic-Con happens in the convention exhibit hall, where fans can purchase myriad merchandise ranging from Funko Pop! figurines to handmade statues. Many fans line up for hours in order to obtain exclusive merchandise like action figures and starship models from makers like Hasbro and Mattel.

The largest event space at the convention is Hall H, a room that played host to some of the weekend’s biggest studio announcements. Marvel Studios announced its new slate of films and television series to be released in the next two years, beginning with “Black Widow” on May 1, 2020. New properties such as “The Eternals” and “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” won’t be released until later in 2020 and early 2021, respectively.

A sizable crowd remained for Hall H’s final panel: a Q&A with film director Kevin Smith, who said he was just happy to have a crowd at all after many fans left when the Marvel panel ended. Smith will be releasing his new movie, “Jay and Silent Bob Reboot,” in October, and brought several clips to show attendees, including a clip of Smith portraying himself at an event called “Chronic Con,” modeled after Comic-Con itself. Smith went on to answer fans’ questions with long, extrapolatory stories including how he got so many celebrities to film cameos in his upcoming film.

“When we started the movie, we didn’t know if we would get people to come down and do cameos because we were shooting in Louisiana,” Smith said. “But since we were shooting during Mardi Gras, … everybody came because it’s a free trip to Mardi Gras.”

Other large panel rooms included Room 6A, which hosted a panel for the fourth and final season of the Amazon original series, “The Man in the High Castle.” The panel featured no fewer than five clips previewing the upcoming season, followed by fan questions. Many fans noted how the show feels particularly poignant given the current political climate. Executive producer David Scarpa said it was a coincidence that the show is as politically appropriate as it has become since it premiered a year before the most recent presidential election.

“Shows are usually ripped from the headlines, but … it seems as if the headlines are starting to follow along with the show,” Scarpa said. “We’ve embraced the extent with how it resonates with today.”

UC Regents recap – July 18

The governing board of the University of California met for the third day of its July meeting at UC San Francisco on Thursday. The Board of Regents discussed the cohort-based tuition model, contracting outside labor and the budget of the UC Office of the President.

Governance Committee

The committee discussed adopting a set of principles on contracting outside labor, such as ensuring the UC will not contract out solely on the basis of savings and ensuring contractors will comply with the University’s Fair Wage/Fair Work plan. However, the committee tabled the vote until the September meeting.
Regent Chair John Pérez suggested the regents eliminate the possibility of economic benefit of contracting out by paying outside contractors the same as normal workers.

Board of Regents

Emily Webber, a rising third-year genetics and genomics student at UC Davis and the chair of the UC Davis California Public Interest Research Group chapter, said same-day voter registration should be offered on the UC campuses, adding that it’s difficult for students to vote during school days without easy access to same-day voter registration on campus.
Caroline Siegel-Singh, a rising fourth-year political science student at UC San Diego and the 2018-2019 UC Student Association president, said she thinks the UC should focus on reaching out to more students in California who it isn’t currently serving. She added some people, like those in the workforce who are reentering higher education much later in life, need additional support from the UC.

The regents voted to approve the proposed budget for the UC Office of the President. Zoanne Nelson, associate vice president of the Strategy and Program Management Office, said the proposed budget for the UC Office of the President for 2019-2020 is $941.7 million, a reduction from the previous year’s budget.
David Alcocer, associate vice president of the Budget Analysis and Planning office, gave a report to the board on cohort-based tuition. He said the cohort-based tuition model would ensure that once a student enrolls in the university, they could expect tuition to stay flat for some period of time, with any tuition increase only applying to the incoming class.
Alcocer said the benefits of the model include providing predictable tuition for students and families, improved planning for campuses and increased financial aid to help cover the total cost of attendance.
Nathan Brostrom, executive vice president of the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, said they are still unsure about which students would be eligible, which student charges would be included and how the model would be phased in. He added that for the adoption to be successful, the UC would need to form a financial partnership with the state and make it clear to students and families that the UC might suspend the plan.
Aidan Arasasingham, a rising third-year global studies student at UCLA, said the regents should consider the impacts of the cohort-based tuition model, which would keep tuition flat for each class, when deciding whether or not to adopt the model. He said the regents should consider the level of predictability the model will provide, its impacts on the quality of the UC and its impacts on accessibility and affordability.

Contributing reports from Maanas Oruganti, Daily Bruin contributor.