USAC recap – Sept. 16

The Undergraduate Students Association Council is the official student government representing the undergraduate student body at UCLA. Council meetings take place every week on Tuesdays at 7 p.m. in Kerckhoff 417 and are open to all students. Watch a live stream of the meeting on the USAC Live! YouTube Channel.

Agenda

• Campus Events Commissioner Lexi Mossler and Cultural Affairs Commissioner Amy Shao gave a special presentation about the upcoming Bruin Bash. The wristband distribution will be different from last year in that there is no online lottery system last year. Instead, wristbands will be distributed starting at 2 p.m. at the Intramural Field and ends at 6 p.m on Sept. 21. Lines to enter Pauley Pavilion will open at 5 p.m.

• Academic Affairs Commissioner Trent Kajikawa started a discussion about making councilmembers’ budget more transparent and show line-by-line expenses. Several councilmembers, Student Wellness Commissioner Marvin Chen, External Vice President Zach Helder, Mossler and Shao, said that they were supportive of the idea to be more transparent but said providing line-by-line expenses would be difficult. Council ended the discussion after they came to a consensus to have Kajikawa to come up with a plan to create an ad-hoc committee that would research ways to improve budget transparency.

• The council unanimously appointed Ashraf Ramzy, a third-year biology student, onto the Student Fee Advisory Committee.

• The council unanimously appointed Malavika Raju, a third-year biochemistry student, onto the Associated Students UCLA Communications Board.

• The council unanimously allocated $2,680 from the Contingency Programming Fund.

Officer reports

• President Heather Rosen said she met with Community Service Commissioner Zack Dameron to discuss about future plans in addressing food security. She said she would like to get input from other offices to see how they could get involved. On Friday, Rosen talked with a director of the California Women’s List to talk about bringing their programs onto campuses which aim to encourage women to get involved with politics.

• Internal Vice President Heather Hourdequin said that she will talk to Meg Bossong, director of Sexual Assault Prevention & Response at Williams College Friday. She said that Williams had a successful campus-wide survey in the past to gauge attitudes about sexual assault on campus. She added that she wishes to implement such a survey at a UC-wide level and is working with former Student Wellness Commissioner Savannah Badalich and the president’s task force to do so.

• Hourdequin also said that students will be able to view the “The Hunting Ground” during Campus Safety Week. The documentary follows the lives of several college rape victims fighting for justice against what they say is lack of action taken by their institution.

• Helder said he had a successful week in Washington, D.C., and was able to have 23 meetings with congressional staff members and establish strong relationships with them. Helder said that out of the 23, four were senators. Helder said he had meetings with congressional staff of both parties because he said he believes there is a lot of bipartisan support over student issues. Helder said that the United States Student Association had taken the stance that student issues are partisan issues. Helder added that he hopes to return to Washington, D.C., every quarter.

• Helder said that at the UCSA meeting in Sacramento, UCSA voted to rejoin USSA with special conditions attached to it. Helder said that it will not directly affect UCLA because we have an indirect affiliation with USSA. UCLA does not spend student fees to USSA but can still contact USSA through UCSA, Helder said.

• Kajikawa said that he met with Patricia Turner, the vice provost of undergraduate education. He said that he discussed with her about having more college academic mentors on the Hill. He also discussed with her about Gov. Jerry Brown’s push to make graduation in three years a possible option for students. Kajikawa said he would like to create an infrastructure to get students to graduate in three years.

• Kajikawa also met with Paul Mendoza, assistant director of financial services at UCLA Housing, and discussed about peer learning resources on the Hill and how there will be no cut backs on peer learning facilities.

• Kajikawa said he talked with Chrissy Keenan, a co-director of the Bruin Consent Coalition, to talk about moving forward to put UCLA Counseling and Psychological Services resources on course syllabi.

• Kajikawa said he met with Arvli Ward, the director of Student Media, to talk about improving the BruinWalk website and increasing its revenue stream. Kajikawa added that he wanted to facilitate a conversation between the Academic Senate and Student Media because professors are wary in having their personal information on the professor-rating website.

• Kajikawa said that he and Facilities Commissioner Ian Cocroft will be talking to information technology staff to discuss the need for more study spaces, especially during finals week. Kajikawa said that UCLA will be establishing wireless access in 190 general assigned classrooms by Friday.

Compiled by Nicholas Yu, Bruin senior staff.