Student activists push for stronger voice in UC Board of Regents

Student activists across all 10 University of California campuses are pushing for more representation on the UC Board of Regents, which currently seats one student among 26 members.

Their frustration is mainly fueled by the board’s November announcement that the University may institute a tuition hike of up to 5 percent annually for the next five years . Some students said they think the board has ignored their voice on the issue by going forward with it, even after UC-wide protests against the hike.

The UC Student Association voted almost unanimously in January to express no confidence in the regents following their tuition hike announcement.

Students and UC Regents have debated adding one more student regent to the board since the position was created. The state legislature formed the position in 1974 to give students a voice on the board.

Adding another student regent would require a state constitutional amendment, which can be a lengthy and expensive process of gathering more than half a million signatures to get it on the ballot and campaigning for the proposition. A majority of California voters must approve the amendment for it to take effect.

“It takes a lot of politics to get it on the bill, so it will take time,” said Conrad Contreras, external vice president of UCLA’s Undergraduate Students Association Council. “But after everything that’s happened lately with the no confidence resolution, it’s going to be sooner than later.”

Regent John Pérez, former speaker of the state assembly, said he thinks student representation is a problem because student regents can only hold the position for as long as they attend the University, limiting their terms.

“There is clearly a structural imbalance between the power of the student regent, who serves for one year, and the power of the regents who each have a 12-year appointment,” he said.

Pérez said he is not opposed to adding a second student regent, but he thinks students should focus on encouraging more student involvement in the position’s selection process. Currently, the student regent is selected by the rest of the board.

To increase student representation in the short term, Student Regent Sadia Saifuddin and Student Regent-Designate Avi Oved said they are working to add more student observers to the board who could offer advice to the regents but would not have a vote.

“A lot of times it’s being able to influence the people you’re working with as compared to just voting that matters,” Saifuddin said.

At the moment, three students sit on the regents’ standing committees as observers. Six students are also allowed reserved seating at the regents’ meetings. Additionally, the UCSA president can give a speech to the board before each meeting, said UC spokesperson Steve Montiel in an email.

“President Napolitano has strongly supported making sure the student voices are heard by the board,” Montiel said. “She meets regularly with students and student regents.”

Caitlin Quinn, external affairs vice president of the Associated Students of UC Berkeley, said she thinks more observers would be useless because the regents already know from the media what students want but they don’t care.

Contreras said he wants to keep pushing for more student regents because he thinks a single vote for the students among 26 voting regents has little value.

“It doesn’t make sense to have a student regent who will constantly vote against the rest of the board, but it won’t make any difference,” he said.

Several board members discussed eliminating the student regent position altogether while Jess Bravin, the 1996-1997 student regent, was serving his term. Regents said at the time that they thought the position was unnecessary and that they already knew what students wanted without the student regent.

Pérez said regents differ on how they view the student regent.

“Some regents treat them condescendingly and pat them on their head, and others have a genuine interest in the ideas,” Pérez said.

But some former and current student regents said they think student regents affect the board’s decisions.

“Student regents help provide a perspective that the board otherwise would not have,” said former UCLA student D’Artagnan Scorza, who served as the student regent from 2008-2009. “I never felt like there was a moment where my points weren’t being heard.”

Scorza said he thinks some student activists are mistaken when they assume the regents do not advocate for the interests of students. He said he thinks the recent tuition increase proposal was actually in the interest of students to maintain the quality of the University system.

“I think there is an assumption that the regents don’t care what students want,” Scorza said. “The overwhelming number of students want the regents to maintain the value of their education, even if it means they’ll charge more.”

Scorza said he thinks students should push for change through other means, such as UCSA, on-campus organizations and academic departmental committees.

However, Oved, who will become a student regent when Saifuddin ends her term in June, disagreed. He said while he supports student governments, he thinks the Board of Regents is the place where students can make the most change because it has significantly more discretionary power than student-run campus governments.

“I’ve interacted too many times with different governing bodies on campus levels as well as within the UC that really just use students as props, as decorations, but don’t really afford them the opportunity to contribute meaningfully,” he said.