UCLA students petition for transfer representative on USAC

Transfer student advocates and a member of the undergraduate student government created a petition Thursday to push for the creation of a new council position to represent transfer students.

If the petition gets 15 percent of the undergraduate student body’s signatures in coming weeks, undergraduate students will be able to vote to create the position during the Undergraduate Students Association Council’s spring elections.

The students want to amend the USAC constitution to create the position to ensure that someone on USAC is representing transfer students, said Nicole Fossier, an Internal Vice President’s Office student group liaison who helped create the petition.

“We wanted to have a centralized place where we can bring (transfer student) issues to light and advocate for them,” said Fossier, a fourth-year psychology and political science student and a board member for Bruin Alliance, one of the slates that ran candidates during the USAC election last year.

Transfer students make up about a third of UCLA’s undergraduate student population.

Fossier said she thinks USAC members should interact more with transfer students to better represent their interests.

Although UCLA offers some resources for transfer students, Randall Call, a member of the Transfer Student Task Force who helped create the petition, said he thinks it is difficult to find resources because UCLA does not have a transfer student center.

“We want to acknowledge this under-recognized and underrepresented population of students and give them a voice in student government,” said Call, a fourth-year sociology student who transferred to UCLA.

Joshua Baum, a third-year political science student and a staff intern in the External Vice President’s Office, said he recently became involved with the initiative because he thinks the current USAC political system is not suitable for transfer students, who are typically only given one opportunity to run and do not know as many people. He added he thought major USAC slates prefer members with multiple years of experience.

Fossier said a position needed to be created for transfer students because it would ensure that they remain a part of USAC.

The petition specifically calls for the representative to advocate for and support transfer students’ needs, which include academic, social and housing issues.

Fossier said the description is broad, so the representative will be able to address whatever happens in USAC year to year.

To pass, 20 percent of undergraduate students must vote in the election, and two-thirds of students who vote must vote in favor of the proposal. If it passes, a representative would be elected in a special election during Fall 2014.

Students can sign the petition in the Bruin Resource Center, which is located in the basement of the Student Activities Center.