USAC recap – Aug. 17

The Undergraduate Students Association Council is the official student government representing the undergraduate student body at UCLA. Council meetings usually take place every Monday at 7 p.m. in Kerckhoff 417 during summer. Watch a live-stream of the meeting on Aug. 17 on the USAC Live! YouTube channel.

Special Presentations

• Erineo Garcia, former member on the governing board of the United States Student Association, gave a presentation highlighting the past lobbying efforts of the association and urged the council not to withdraw membership.
• Student Wellness Commissioner Marvin Chen and Internal Vice President Heather Hourdequin discussed what they learned from their trip to the Interfaith Youth Core leadership conference. The two councilmembers said that respecting people’s diverse identities is at the core of creating positive relationships.

Agenda items

• The council withdrew from the United States Student Association in a 7-2-1 vote. The council discussed the ramifications of pulling out of USSA, with the two present LET’S ACT! councilmembers voicing concerns over the lack of outreach to mother organizations and underrepresented students in making this decision. In addition, LET’S ACT! councilmembers were wary of whether the federal lobby corps External Vice President Zach Helder wanted to create will be as effective as USSA and represent students as well as all organizations on campus. Helder said that UCLA students were his constituency and that UCLA has the resources and will lobby more effectively at a national level without USSA. Several councilmembers asked Helder how the current membership fees fund will be allocated to the federal lobby corps. Helder gave a general breakdown of the funds and assured the council he would be transparent in providing a detailed budget of the federal lobby corps.
• Cultural Affairs Commissioner Amy Shao started a discussion about Tracy Nguyen’s death and said she was disappointed in the council for not reaching out to Nguyen’s family.
• Stephanie Wong, the Finance Committee chair, said her office found no evidence suggesting LET’S ACT! misused student fees. Wong said she did not have the jurisdiction to investigate other claims made in the leaked documents disclosed by an anonymous source earlier in the year, and would like to create a body in the future capable of investigating into election-related and student fee misuse allegations.
• President Heather Rosen wanted to give council support to an event organized by Christina Harley, an alum of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. The event will feature the First Lady of California speaking to fifth-graders at UCLA about the importance of education.
• The council unanimously appointed Lindsay Allen, a rising second-year mathematics/economics student, as the next Election Board chair.
• The council unanimously appointed Ashly Mohankumar, a rising third-year psychobiology student, as a member of the Associated Students UCLA Communications Board.
• The council unanimously appointed Kevin Yu, a rising third-year business economics student, as the interim Finance Committee chair because the current chair, Wong, will be away for a month.
• The council unanimously approved an allocation of $428 from the Contingency Programming Fund.

Officer reporters

• Rosen said she met with California Assembly member David Hadley to discuss water infrastructure, middle-income economy and the market for skilled versus unskilled labor forces. Rosen suggested changing the bylaws to include a presidential appointment on an alumni network committee to increase the council’s reach to alumni in order to provide greater internship opportunities for UCLA students.
• Hourdequin said that after attending the Interfaith Youth Core leadership conference, she was looking into the possible framework of creating a dean of spiritual life. Hourdequin said she met with information technology staff on improving the website containing a list of applications student groups can apply to. She said she plans that in the future the website will be similar to the Common Application, in which only one form will be needed to apply to any of the funding sources provided by USAC. Hourdequin said she met with Assembly member Richard Bloom to discuss recommendations the University of California has made in regard to sexual assault policies.
• Helder said he received a lot of emails with complaints about failing to reach out to students for the University of California Student Association delegation in a timely manner. Helder apologized and said he was too ambitious with the hopes of organizing it himself. Helder said he talked to Associate Vice Chancellor of Government and Community Relations Keith Parker about creating a federal lobby corp and said that Parker was supportive of the idea, and that UCLA had the resources to do so.
• General Representative 2 Aaliya Khan said she met with Jerry Kang, vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion, to discuss the diversity referendum. Khan said she wanted to hold an event commemorating all the individuals who have died from police brutality over the year on campus.
• Academic Affairs Commissioner Trent Kajikawa said he is working on making the Academic Success Referendum Fund more transparent. He said he will make allocations every quarter rather than having just a single fund allocation.
• Chen said he talked to Kathleen Salvaty, the Title IX coordinator at UCLA, to discuss the overhauls going on at each UC campus. Chen said he is working with student media to create a Bruin health application which will provide information about the Student Wellness Commission committee events. Chen said he talked to Nicole Green, director of Campus Assault Resources and Education (CARE) and prevention programs at UCLA Counseling and Psychological Services, and learned that CAPS was understaffed. Chen said he is working with the UCLA Healthy Campus Initiative to bring in a 9-foot tall tree stump created from cigarette butts in an effort to highlight the tobacco-free policy at UCLA.

Compiled by Nicholas Yu, Bruin senior staff.