Sonya Brooks, the 2025-2026 UC student regent, sat down with the Daily Bruin’s national news and higher education editor, Alexandra Crosnoe, to discuss Brooks’ background and goals for her tenure.

Brooks, a graduate student in public health and a doctoral student in education at UCLA, is a first-generation student and a student parent. Before assuming the role of regent-designate, Brooks served on the UCLA Graduate Student Association as its vice president of external affairs and as president of the UCLA Black Graduate Student Association. She will be the first Black woman to hold the role of student regent.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Daily Bruin: Why did you decide to apply to the role of student regent?

Sonya Brooks: I wavered and vacillated through the decision to apply. I was EVP – external vice president – of the Graduate Student Association last year, and through that organization, I worked with UC GPC, which is the University of California Graduate and Professional Students Council.

I ended up being a STAR, which is a student advocate to the Regents. In that public speech, or after it was over, I felt like it was the dumbest thing that I’ve ever done in my life. I just felt like it was the most novice and rudimentary speech that anyone could have given, and I was just so utterly embarrassed.

The staff advisors applauded me when they walked into that room. They were like, “That was the best one-minute speech that they had ever seen.” They said that they had never seen the regents pay attention, nor had they ever seen the regents clap at someone’s one-minute public speech before.

I was floored. I was like, “Well, wait a minute. What are you talking about?” and they were like, “You had their attention.” It was during that phase when I was like, “Wow, if I craft my words and my vocabulary differently, they listen.”

I took that along with my advocacy work, and I molded them together, and it made me say, “Now that I know or have been told how to approach the regents and get their attention, now I may have an insight into presenting issues to them that can impact students’ lives, both undergraduate and graduate, for the better.”

DB: You’ve talked about how you want to be a “voice for the voiceless” and hope to address problems facing student communities. Could you tell me a little bit about what problems you want to prioritize and what kind of goals you hope to achieve in your tenure?

SB: Being a voice for the voiceless is something that I’ve always kind of taken – it has been a precedent for me. With being the first Black woman that has ever held this position, it comes with a lot of pressure. It comes with a lot of pressure, not only from my constituents, but it also comes with a lot of pressure for handling issues.

We don’t talk a lot about academic equity. Especially when students are either dismissed or they are on probation, and the result, or the response from all of the universities – not just from UCLA, but from all the universities – is, “You better get it together, or you’re out of here.” I want us to take a different approach to that. I want us to see: Were basic needs a factor in the student not being able to maintain their academic integrity or their academics? Were they homeless? Did they have food insecurity? Were they taking care of children or parents or dependents? So, what was it that led to this? That’s one of the issues that I want to tackle.

Another is definitely basic needs, and that includes housing, specifically for graduate students, because I think that the university has taken a good leap in ensuring that undergraduates have housing. They’ve done well with first- and second-years. Now, they’re taking a stance on junior and senior status and even transfer students. But the graduate population seems to still be left out of that equation.

Another issue that I would like to look at is mental health. We need some sound basics on: How do we address mental health challenges in the student population? How can we get more counselors that represent the student population? How can they treat students from a culturally sensitive and culturally responsive background?

Two of the other things that I’m interested about is mentorship and definitely more financial opportunities for research, but I think that the academic equity one is one that I’m going to pursue rather heavily this year.

DB: Another interesting thing about your background is that you’re a parent. I was wondering how being a student parent impacts your perspective and your goals as student regent.

SB: The sad part about it is that a lot of times, and more often than not, student parents are not even taken into the equation or considered when policies at UCLA are being enacted or when the conversation even includes anything about basic needs or anything of that magnitude.

That bothered me, so much so that I worked with the graduate division of education last year to finally get a question on the graduate application to ask if you’re a student parent because we had no way to extrapolate that data. I feel as if we’re doing a disservice to our parents and our dependent caregivers by not having that information. It puts me in a position to, again, be that voice for the voiceless.

I am not doing what I am expected to do. I am doing what I was created to do. If, as a regent, I am not advocating and bringing to the forefront the challenges that student parents – undergraduates, as well as graduates – are facing, then I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing. These students have the world on their shoulders. We’re still trying to make these GPAs so they can go on to these different endeavors in their life.

I’ve just been fortunate to have three of the best children ever who are my greatest cheerleaders. That is something that we proclaim throughout our household: We do what we are created to do, not expected to do.

DB: There have been several protests across the UC related to the conflict in the Middle East. As student regent designate, and as student regent, how do you plan to approach these difficult conversations about protests and free speech?

SB: Everyone has a right to say whatever they want to say. Where it draws the line, for me, is that boundary of respect. Just keep it respectable. And you can say whatever you want. You can push whatever initiative and so on and so forth that you want, but just keep it respectable.

I think the challenge is that we find, or we would find, that we have more commonalities than we do differences if we would talk. So that’s one of the things that I am planning on doing right is going to the groups and having these conversations, because I don’t profess to know it all.

I want to have conversations with both sides, not necessarily together right now, because I think that things are too incendiary. I don’t want to cause further conflict, but I want to understand. Once I understand, I can see what difference I can make. With any kind of conflict that goes on, we realize at the end of the conversation, we do have a lot more similarities than we do differences.

DB: What part of being student regent excites you the most?

SB: I think the thing that excites me the most is that I get to meet and talk to students from across the board, from all walks of life – from the ones who live across the street from the university to the ones that are from the opposite end of the world. I get to hear their stories, I get to hear what matters most to them, I get to hear their journeys.

I think that that is so impactful, because it lets me see beyond them, beyond the beautiful faces. It allows me to hear their journeys. And then once you hear that, I start to kind of put these puzzle pieces together. I understand why these issues mean more to them than others and then see how I can now impart or implant myself into that to bring these issues to the forefront, to help them make their academic career the best that it could be and then help them off to the next journey or the next part of their lives.