Editorial: Publicizing open positions necessary to find more qualified applicants

In the coming months, the undergraduate student government will have to appoint several more students to positions on various UCLA governing bodies and committees.

And if past patterns are any indication of future outcomes, the pool of applicants that Undergraduate Students Association Council President Devin Murphy will have to choose from will be underwhelming, to say the least.

Already this year, Murphy has made several crucial presidential appointments, including the Election Board chair and two appointments to the Associated Students UCLA Board of Directors. For many of the appointments he’s had to make so far this year, Murphy said there have been few applicants to choose from.

The lack of applicants for presidential appointment positions is puzzling – many of these positions offer experience, stipends and benefits that few other positions on campus can boast about. The students sitting on the ASUCLA Board of Directors, for example, help make tough and important decisions about millions of dollars coming in and going out of the Student Union, and they get their tuition paid in full for the two years they sit on the board.

The only thing that could explain the few applications and a seeming lack of interest in positions that offer so much potential benefit is that people simply do not know they exist.

That’s a reality that every councilmember, not just the president, has to change. It’s up to the council to make sure that the student body is well-informed and aware of the opportunities available to them through presidential appointment positions as well as appointment positions for other councilmembers, and to make sure that those positions are filled by the most qualified applicants possible.

Advertising almost exclusively by word of mouth and Facebook posts is inadequate – using departmental listserves and publicly posting ads in buildings around campus is one place to start.

To be sure, the responsibility for this year’s lack of applications does not sit squarely on this council’s shoulders. Many presidential appointments have to be made almost immediately as soon as the president comes into office, giving that person very little time to publicize open positions and seek out all willing and capable applicants.

But this council can start a new precedent. Publicizing appointment opportunities from this point forward – including those that will not be open again until next year under a different council – could mean that future years will see a greater number of applicants and thus, more qualified applicants than previous years.

And presidential appointments could use the boost; in the past few years, there have been several clearly underprepared applicants coming forward for council to vote on their appointment. At the last meeting, Jener Sakiri was appointed to the ASUCLA Communications Board, which publishes and allocates funding for the Daily Bruin. After stumbling over a question about the board’s budget, he said that it gets money from “different fees and grants and stuff like that,” but that he is unsure about how the money is allocated. Council seemed reluctant about his appointment, but essentially decided it just needed to fill the space.

Last year’s Election Board chair, Anthony Padilla, was appointed at the last minute and showed marked unpreparedness in his interview with council, where he could not name all of the councilmembers sitting at the table or the slates that candidates were running on.

It would be unfair to expect an applicant to know the ins and outs of a complicated budget, but basic knowledge about the body they’re applying to help lead is a reasonable expectation.

Council should hold all applicants to that standard, but they can only do that if qualified people are applying.