Scientists must work to cure government underrepresentation
By Katrina Oh
Nov. 24, 2009 9:17 p.m.
While the disparity between North and South Campus has been a recurring theme during UCLA’s Spring Sing, there is a dark underbelly to this merriment.
The grievances of South Campus have been long neglected by UCLA’s very own Undergraduate Student Association Council, an organization dominated by North Campus students.
Although USAC’s Web site says that their “membership is comprised of every UCLA undergraduate student,” this does not ensure that there is an equitable representation of all since membership is not synonymous with representation. And within USAC, a disproportionate amount of power belongs to those who call North Campus their home.
In the end, USAC is comprised of individual students, each with their own experiences that dictate what they feel are the main problems for the school. Unfortunately for South Campus, the students that USAC caters to are normally studying in front of Bunche Hall, not Boelter Hall.
Out of USAC’s 13 elected student officers and commissioners, only Timothy Mullins, a third-year mechanical engineering student, is from the south side of campus.
“Just in general in terms of student projects and student groups, I feel as though South Campus gets sort of kicked (to) the curb a little bit,” said Mullins, the USAC facilities commissioner.
This sentiment was reiterated by Shawn Smith, a fourth-year applied mathematics and philosophy student, who wishes USAC could invite scientists to speak about topics he is interested in, such as innovative technology.
“I don’t feel like there are many programs designed for the South Campus interests,” Smith said.
The absence of programs that pique the interests of those with science-related majors will only perpetuate this disproportionate makeup of USAC.
However, most people within South Campus are unaware of their disenfranchised status, much less even know what the acronym USAC means. USAC’s influence dramatically erodes the deeper one ventures into South Campus.
“Time is a big (factor) because within South Campus a lot more time is devoted to studies than extracurricular (activiites),” Smith said.
The higher emphasis on grades makes it difficult to do anything else, he added.
But to clarify, this is not the fault of USAC. After all, any student, regardless of whether they know about USAC, can run for office in spring quarter, as Mullins did last year.
The real problem here is the self-defeating mentality that students have accepted, thereby instilling South Campus students with anything North Campus-related and vice-versa.
USAC, which strives to cultivate future leaders, presages the composition of the United States’ Congress of tomorrow.
Out of 541 elected senators and representatives serving in the 111th congress in 2008 (including nonvoting delegates), 27 were health professionals, five were scientists, and six have been engineers, reported the Congressional Research Service.
Certainly, North Campus skills are important in writing legislation, but science and math are being devalued in government, judging by the low number of scientists and mathematicians in Congress.
Congress needs more policy makers with a firmer understanding of matters such as cyber-security, health care and energy to bring in more innovative solutions to our current problems.
Representative Rush Holt, a Democrat from New Jersey, underscores the importance of scientists in an interview with The New York Times when he said that problems not only arise in obvious science-related issues but also “those countless issues, and it really is countless, that have scientific and technological components, but the issues are not seen as science issues.”
Holt’s example illustrates that scientists are capable of writing legislation and understanding the mechanisms of Congress. Similarly, Mullin’s involvement in USAC proves that South Campus students can be an asset to student government as well.
But the prevailing notion among science- and mathematics-related students at UCLA is that government ““ student and otherwise ““ is most aptly executed by those with humanities and social science experience.
At best, even with the help of experts, politicians are still at the mercy of statistics. Manipulated or biased data can easily mislead the unwary politician and can be especially problematic for those averse to the sciences.
But at least this polarization gives us a few good laughs at Spring Sing, right?
E-mail Oh at [email protected]. Send general comments to [email protected].
