Wednesday, October 15, 1997
From colleges to corporate profits
MONEY New BruinCard leaves UCLA students at the mercy of
advertisers
The new BruinCards are supposed to make our lives easier, right?
(That’s what was advertised, anyway.) But what is the real
difference between these cards and the old ID cards?
Both cards have our ID number on them, the new cards have our
library card bar code directly printed on them rather than a
sticker on the back (I can’t tell you how much better this
innovation is) and both are able to have money placed on them in a
debit card fashion. The main difference seems to be the AT&T
logo on the back and the optional calling card. Is this really
worth all the hassle we’ve had to go through?
It seems to me the real reason we are getting these cards is so
that UCLA can get kickbacks from AT&T while AT&T gets loads
of free advertising – all at our expense.
When I obtained my BruinCard, I waited in line for about 10
minutes before getting my picture taken. During those 10 minutes,
at least three people hounded me to get an AT&T calling card.
Supposedly we all have to get those damned BruinCards, right? I
don’t appreciate the fact that every student at UCLA who got a
BruinCard was subjected to an advertising situation that they could
not avoid seeing or hearing. It’s called advertising to a captive
audience. It’s great for corporations like AT&T because they
can force you to listen, but what about us? This, however, is only
one small part of what I have a problem with.
When I turned down the many people who wanted me to get a
calling card, I figured that would be the last I heard of AT&T.
I was quickly proved wrong. When I received my card, I found that
all of us have an AT&T logo on the back of our student ID cards
along with some AT&T 800 number. This is a real problem. I do
not particularly want to be advertising for a huge corporation like
AT&T even if it’s in a minimal way. It’s really upsetting that
at a public university like UCLA we have somehow become involved
with a huge corporation. I have never heard of any other school in
which the students are forced to carry cards with corporate logos
on them. It’s unbelievable.
So why do I feel so strongly that corporations do not belong
anywhere near a university? I feel that they are one of the most
undemocratic institutions that exist in the world today. The bottom
line for a corporation is always profit. Anything that gets in the
way of profit is systematically destroyed. This could mean
destroying the competition, it could mean paying workers horrendous
wages, or it could mean moving to other countries where it is
easier to exploit workers. This is the legacy of the corporate
world in which we live, one that puts profits before the lives of
people, where a CEO in this country can make as much as thousands
of underpaid workers in Third World countries. Does UCLA really
want to ally itself with this kind of institution?
It’s already happening. Look around: Taco Bell, a subsidiary of
PepsiCo, is sitting right in the middle of campus. Panda Express
also has a location on campus, and this is just food.
I’ve heard the chancellor is thinking about cutting back on
departments which don’t bring in enough money. Forgive me for being
an idealist, but I thought the point of an academic department in a
university was to teach students who are interested in learning,
not to bring in money. I really hope that this is not the case, but
I fear that it is.
This sounds suspiciously like corporate policy to me. It’s bad
enough to have UCLA associated with corporations, but now it begins
to look more and more like just another corporation itself.
I don’t think that students should have been forced into this
situation. Why did students have no say in these new cards? Or, if
they did, who are these students and why did they let this
happen?
I believe it is our school as well (especially considering how
much money we all pay to learn here) and we should have some say in
the administrative decisions. So, I would like to put out this
plea: Anyone interested in helping me figure out how this happened
and hopefully stopping the growing merger between UCLA and all of
these corporations, write to me at [email protected]. You can, of
course, also just send me comments.
Garrick Ruiz