ASUCLA closes doors to student accountability

The Associated Students of UCLA’s Board of Directors has
some big decisions to make about the future of the largest
student-owned business venture in the country. And it’s
getting more input from the university than it ever has in the past
““ all to the detriment of public accountability and the
association’s mission of serving students.

ASUCLA, the student-run organization that operates the UCLA
Store, UCLA Restaurants and all activities in Ackerman Union, is
considering unprecedented restructuring that could result in
serious downsizing, or even outsourcing the store to a private
vendor.

Sadly though, the chancellor has appointed a joint operating
committee, made up of administrators, ASUCLA management and board
members, that will make a “recommendation” regarding
what to do about the money-losing UCLA Store. But the implication
seems clear: the student majority

ASUCLA Board of Directors had better do what the committee says
““ or else.

Although there are four student board members on the committee,
they do not constitute a majority. So, this advisory body ““
charged with “suggesting” one of the most important
decisions in the students’ association’s 80-year
history ““ does not even come close to representing UCLA
students. Furthermore, the committee isn’t just dealing with
the store; it’s also setting its sights on the big picture:
ASUCLA’s future as a whole.

Even worse, the committee is operating solely in closed
sessions, with no accountability to the students who own the
association and pay a $51 per year student union fee to keep it
running.

This turn of events is unacceptable, but not surprising.

During the past four years since a financially strained
association borrowed $20 million from the university, student power
on the Board of Directors has steadily, albeit unofficially,
declined. As a provision of the 1996 Advance Agreement, which
outlined the terms of the loan, then-Chancellor Charles Young
required that elected officials of the Undergraduate Students
Association Council and the Graduate Students Association could no
longer serve on the board. This had the function of de-politicizing
ASUCLA’s decision-making body by removing it from the realm
of public debate.

In recent years, campus consciousness of the board’s
proceedings, which had been so prevalent in the tense years leading
up to the Advance Agreement, has dwindled to a minimum. As a
result, current student board members have little knowledge of the
association’s institutional history and seem to have little
understanding of what it means for students to own and operate such
an important entity on this campus.

ASUCLA began 80 years ago as a co-op run by students for
students. But today, it acts more like a detached corporation, in
which student board members don’t think twice before going
into closed session or rubber-stamping the policies of a
bureaucratic professional management staff.

Under the guise of “fiscal responsibility,” the
board has gradually ceded power to management. But just how
fiscally responsible has this new order been?

Judging from one recent action, the answer is disturbing. Last
spring, under the recommendation of management, the board decided
to open a UCLA Spirit Store on Third Street Promenade. Less than a
year later, the store was closed due to lack of sales, at a loss of
$650,000. Not surprisingly, most of the proceedings for closing the
store took place in closed session.

Students should care about what happens to ASUCLA because for
all of its faults, it is still our association. It employs about
2,000 students at higher wages than most comparable competitors and
allows them more flexible schedules. Most of all, it is the most
salient example of student power on this campus.

If the association violates the financial requirements of the
Advance Agreement, which has not happened, then the administration
can take ASUCLA over entirely. The joint operating committee
appears to be a premature step in that direction. If that’s
the case, then students, at the very least, have the right to know
what’s going on. Administrators, ASUCLA management, and most
of all, student board members owe us ““ ASUCLA’s owners
““ as much.