Submission: Student regents encourage diversity

Editor’s Note: This submission has previously appeared in The Aggie and The Highlander. It has been edited for Daily Bruin style and reprinted below.

As classes resume and we return to campus, reminders of the diversity of our student body are all around us.

Some students have arrived freshly inspired by the beauty and culture of foreign countries, and some emerge from the depths of backbreaking jobs and seemingly endless hours of internships; still others sit in the very same classrooms they frequented during long days of summer school, while some find themselves back here after soaking in the sun and enjoying the peaceful bliss of doing absolutely nothing.

But while many of its students wandered far from their campuses during the summer months, the wheels of activity continue to turn at the University of California. The governing body of the University, the Board of Regents, continued to hold its bimonthly meetings at UC San Francisco. And in July, we were privileged to take our seats at the table as Student Regent Sadia Saifuddin and Student Regent-designate Avi Oved.

Allow us to introduce ourselves.

The UC Board of Regents can be a distant, removed body of authority; few students on our campuses across the state have any direct interaction with the Board of Regents. Meanwhile, the influence and impact of the UC Regents, while tangible and omnipresent, is often misunderstood. It is our goal to change that.

As the student regent and student regent-designate, we are privileged to represent students across the University of California. As representatives to the board, we advocate for the student agenda on the Board of Regents. Regardless of your major, age, race, gender, sex, nationality, religion, disability, identity or expression, we are here to listen, and we are here to amplify your voice.

The student regent derives his or her power from the people that he or she represents. We are not here to advocate for our personal beliefs; our advocacy agenda is shaped by the general opinion of the UC student community.

We are here for you.

Each of us has a responsibility to ourselves, and to one another, to ensure that the UC is the best institution that it can possibly be. Together, we want to encourage all students to embrace our diversity, set aside our differences and come together to bring positive change to our university. As the student regents, we have one purpose in mind: to serve the students of the University of California.

Reach out to us. Email us. Come see us during campus visits. Contact us with your concerns, your questions, your vision for a better University of California.

We are the UC student regents. How can we represent you?

Saifuddin and Oved are the UC student regent and UC student regent-designate.