The Undergraduate Students Association Council has set a variety of lofty goals for the upcoming year, though disagreement within the council has already stalled some of its work.
USAC’s two main goals are to increase student representation within the administration and increase campus safety. Other goals include facilitating the freshman and transfer adjustment process and making life at UCLA more affordable.
Council members also have plans to deal with broader issues, such as working to ensure that gear sold at the UCLA Store is not made in sweatshops.
The council is already in full swing and developing plans to carry out these goals by setting up working groups to address each goal and set out ways to achieve them, said Tina Park, the USAC external vice president and a fourth-year political science student.
Many of these issues have concerned council members for some time.
“Strengthening the student voice is an issue that I’ve talked about with just about all the UC student body presidents,” said USAC President Marwa Kaisey. “Often students feel ignored or that they don’t have a vote. Hopefully, working UC-wide, we can give students greater representation.”
In order to strengthen the student voice, Kaisey said the council is planning to work with administrators to promote more representation of students, create the Off-Campus Residence Association to mirror the On-Campus Housing Council, and encourage students to vote in the November election.
Kaisey also said the council has plans to change the USAC election process to an instant runoff system, allowing students to rank candidates in order of preference, which she said would save time and resources.
Gregory Cendana, the USAC internal vice president, is spearheading a crime awareness campaign as part of the council’s plan to increase campus safety.
“We’re ... working with MyUCLA and UCPD to develop a reporting mechanism so that students can know what’s going on in the community,” Cendana said.
But despite an abundance of ideas and plans for the upcoming year, council members have encountered disagreement due to USAC’s division along slate lines.
Five of the council members are affiliated with the slate Students First!, five with the slate Bruins United, and three are independent. A slate is a coalition of students who pool their resources to further similar goals.
At the Aug. 23 USAC meeting, all of the Students First! council members present walked out of the room. They were protesting the students Kaisey, a member of Bruins United, had chosen to appoint to campus committees. The interruption cut the meeting short and forced the council to resume where it left off on Sept. 4.
“The division has been felt the most in the appointment process, which is taking much longer than it has in past years and is much more contentious,” said Nat Schuster, the Academic Affairs commissioner and a fourth-year neuroscience student.
Such a division has presented a relatively new problem for the council – until last year, USAC was dominated by a majority slate for a decade.
“This half-and-half (division) is relatively new, so the problems we are having are to be expected,” Kaisey said. “When you have one group that thinks the same, of course you’re going to get things done well.”
“But if there was no tension, I wouldn’t be pushed the right way or made to work harder and do my best,” she added.
Other council members view the conflict as fuel for generating new ideas and encouraging collaboration.
“I don’t think we can avoid (disagreement), but I think it can help us compromise and develop more complete goals,” Cendana said. “I think that this is going to create a lot more dialogue in finding ways to work with each other.”
Though the walkout was a striking example of the council’s division, Park said she has seen other interactions that bode well for the year.
“It’s definitely a possibility that (our differences) might interfere with getting things done, but after the retreat we saw that it didn’t matter who proposed an idea. Instead, everyone seemed enthusiastic,” Park said. “That’s a good sign for the year – regardless of the fact, we’ll be able to work together.”