UCSA to extend campaigns to two years

The University of California Student Association will now plan for some of its campaigns to take two years instead of one because it has been difficult to accomplish its campaigns in that time.

The association, which advocates for UC students on issues like lowering tuition and acquiring more state funding for the UC, decides at the beginning of each academic year which campaigns it will pursue for that year. Often, the campaigns consist of lobbying state legislators and educating students about various issues.

This year, the association focused on a bill that would tax companies that extract oil from California by 9.5 percent to help fund education, lobbying the state to defund prisons and fund education and persuading the UC to divest from fossil fuel companies.

But Kareem Aref, UCSA president, said the UCSA Board of Directors decided at its meeting Sunday to change its bylaws to allow for more time to work on these campaigns because many of them can’t be accomplished in a year.

“A two-year term … allows for greater time to work on the campaigns so we can actually tackle the bigger issues,” Aref said. “There’s a lot of concern that most of the campaigns we’re trying to tackle … just aren’t feasible in one year.”

For instance, UCSA’s current Invest in Graduation Not Incarceration, Transform Education campaign, which argues for the state to defund prisons and fund education more, is its continuation of last year’s Fighting Incarceration, Reclaiming Education campaign. The state has not taken any significant action that would fulfill what the campaigns call for.

On Sunday, UCSA board members also discussed plans to educate students about Senate Constitutional Amendment 5, which would allow public universities to consider race in admissions, in the hopes that they would be more likely to vote in favor of it – if it comes back to the ballot in 2016.

The measure was taken off this year’s ballot because some legislators heard concerns that the measure would negatively affect members of the Asian and Pacific Islander community, though others argued it would only affect certain members of that community.

Compiled by Kristen Taketa, Bruin senior staff.