UCLA’s Worst: No. 2: For USAC members, divided they failed
By Daily Bruin Staff
June 4, 2006 9:00 p.m.
Many students on this campus don’t even know what USAC is.
Right now, we can’t blame them.
If the Undergraduate Students Association Council was a class,
this year’s councilmembers barely passed. It’s not that
they didn’t show up; it’s just that they didn’t
do much.
This year’s USAC members had a great deal of potential
when they took office June 2005. Though one slate had a majority,
as has been the case for over a decade, they still had a chance to
pull together and advocate for students as a united body.
They instead failed to set council-wide goals and spent their
time bickering about bylaw changes. While there were notable
accomplishments within individual offices, the performance of the
council as a whole was disappointing to say the least.
As the official voice of over 25,000 undergraduate students,
their shortcomings hurt all undergraduates, whether students
realize it. If councilmembers aren’t advocating for the
concerns of the student body to administrators and people in power,
those concerns are often neglected.
Next year’s councilmembers should remember that they are
the voice of a bigger body and that student government can be
powerful and effective working as a whole.
