USAC recap – Oct. 24

The Undergraduate Students Association Council is the official student government representing the undergraduate student body at UCLA. Council meetings take place every week on Tuesday at 7 p.m. in Kerckhoff 417 and are open to all students. Watch a livestream of the meetings on the USAC Live! YouTube channel.

Agenda:

• The council made appointments to the food security, internship engagement, finance and Community Service Mini Fund committees. The council also appointed a student and two alternative members to the Judicial Board.
• The council approved allocating $4,876 from the Contingency Programming Fund to several USAC offices and student groups.
• The council approved allocating $44,193.63 from the Associated Students UCLA Board of Directors Programming Fund to various student organizations.
• The council also approved allocating $10,346.19 from the Arts Restoring Community Referendum Funding.
• USAC President Arielle Yael Mokhtarzadeh proposed the council limit access to USAC Live! videos on YouTube to individuals who have a ucla.edu email address.

Officer Reports:

• External Vice President Chloe Pan said her office held a phone banking session Friday to advocate for immigration reform and said around 50 students made 100 calls.
• Pan added she attended the University of California Student Association’s quarterly meeting Monday with UC President Janet Napolitano in Oakland, California. She added Napolitano has committed to speak with all UC campus chancellors to make sure all future housing developments include emergency housing units for students.
• Pan added her office is holding a three-day event from Wednesday to Friday as part of the University-wide UC Sustain Our Students campaign to highlight issues student have accessing basic needs, such as food insecurity and health care.
• Academic Affairs Commissioner Divya Sharma said his office is working with the Registrar’s Office to increase the first-pass enrollment cap from 10 units to 12 units.
• Facilities Commissioner Zahra Hajee said her office received a lot of feedback from the Campus Uber/Lyft Zones Survey, which -easured how accessible or inaccessible students thought the new ride hailing zones were. UCLA Transportation Services has partnered with Uber and Lyft to create designated pickup zones at 12 locations on campus, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays this quarter.
• She added she has informed UCLA Transportation Services that the system had a glitch which prevented Uber from having open access to other locations on campus after 6 p.m., even though the ride-hailing zones are not supposed to be in effect then.
• Campus Events Commissioner Nedda Saidian said her office held its first concert Monday featuring Mt. Joy, an indie folk band from Philadelphia.
• Saidian added her office and Melnitz Movies will be screening Donnie Darko on Tuesday at the James Bridges Theater at 8 p.m.
• Transfer Student Representative Sayron Stokes said she will be holding her first office hour at the Transfer Student and Veterans Resource Center on Wednesday from 12 p.m to 1 p.m.
• Roy Champawat, ASUCLA student union director, said ASUCLA will begin renovating the dining room at Ackerman Union soon. He added they will install new floors, furniture and electric outlets.

New Business:

• Mokhtarzadeh proposed amending the council’s Title IX bylaw to mandate future council members go through a mandatory Title IX training led by the UCLA Title IX office by week 3 of fall quarter.
• The council voted to make the Office Space Allocation Committee chair a two-year appointment to more consistently manage office space in Kerckhoff Hall.
• The council also changed the bylaw to make the OSAC chairperson a Facilities Commission appointment. The position was previously appointed by the USAC Office of the President.
• The council will vote next week to update its Oct. 3 meeting minutes to reflect that although it voted to amend the election code, the amendment will not be implemented because it did not meet the adequate number of votes.
• Administrative Representative Debra Geller said she thinks there was no urgency to amend the election code because there is no imminent election.
• She added amendments to the election code must be brought by the Election Board chairperson and approved by the council.
• Sharma said the Constitutional Review Committee will meet Friday to redefine the election code’s language.