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Editorial: Regents’ addition of student adviser unlikely to make any difference

By Editorial Board

Jan. 7, 2016 1:06 a.m.

Later this month, the University of California Board of Regents will vote on whether to create a new student adviser position. The adviser would represent student interests in UC committees the current student regent and student regent-designate don’t participate in.

At face value, the regents’ consideration of admitting another student into their ranks seems like a move in the right direction. However, because the student adviser will have no voting power, approving the position would be little more than symbolic and represents the regents’ continued resistance to meaningful student representation.

If the regents really want to prove they care, they will come forth with a plan to actually engage students more proactively. Currently, only one student regent holds voting power alongside 18 other men and women with no explicit interests in representing students outside of their involvement on the board.

When the student regent does vote against the rest of the board, nothing actually changes. The student adviser, like the student regent-designate, will not have the voting power necessary to even marginally change this unbalanced power dynamic.

The student adviser’s purpose among the regents is being marketed as a megaphone for the student population, which the regents have little interaction with. Yet ironically, the adviser’s responsibilities do not involve any power and contribute only one student voice to the cacophony of other officials, experts and outside interests.

Simply involving another student is unlikely to make any difference. Even when soliciting students’ feedback, the regents have proven to be reluctant listeners.

Last October, the working group for the Statement of Principles Against Intolerance hosted an open forum and scheduled meetings with members of the UC community at UCLA to solicit feedback on the statement’s draft, which generated heated debate on how specific it should be. This gave regents an opportunity to have meaningful interaction with students – both in volume and variety.

However, not all those who had a scheduled audience with the regents during their limited visit got to voice their opinions. The working group ended the open forum before all students in attendance were able to speak, and before others with scheduled appointments arrived.

The working group has no plans to host an open forum again.

Since then, the UC has said little else about the statement publicly, but has continued consulting experts and others with vested interests, including UCLA’s Chancellor of Diversity, Equity and and Inclusion Jerry Kang.

At their November meeting, the regents only confirmed that the statement would be inclusive.

Who’s on their list of privileged interviewees and why their advisement matters more than students’ hasn’t been disclosed. As with most of the UC’s decisions, the statement is being drafted quietly.

A student adviser will not fix the University’s lack of transparency and accountability, and as a single person, will not suitably represent the vast student body the regents more or less ignore when making decisions on everything from its tuition to its health insurance.

If the UC wants to get a pat on the back, it’s going to have to try harder than that.

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