Thursday, April 9, 1998
UCLA should place student needs first
COLUMN: University priorities shift to entrepreneurial concerns
instead of heeding Bruin interests
One day during fourth week last quarter, I was buying my last
textbook (by the way, fourth week is a good time to buy books
because you can avoid the lines and may snag some used books that
students who dropped classes early have returned), but I digress.
Unfortunately, there were no used books to be found, so I didn’t
have enough cash on-hand to pay for the book. I reached for my
checkbook and asked the textbook expert/cashier to whom I should
make out the check. "ASUCLA?" I asked. I used to work for ASUCLA,
at the Lecture Notes counter, and to this day, it boggles the mind
how people pursuing college educations don’t understand that you
cannot buy a single set of lecture notes before eighth week.
But I digress again. In response to my question, the textbook
expert/cashier responded, "Just ‘UCLA Store.’" Always the curious
Bruin, I asked what was the rationale for the change from ASUCLA to
UCLA Store. He replied, "They’re trying to de-emphasize the student
part."
Yes indeed, I thought, as I made out my check to UCLA, instead
of ASUCLA, which stands for Associated Students of UCLA, in case
you didn’t know. What have they done for you lately?
Anyway, as I finally near graduation (much to the joy,
excitement and nervous anticipation of my family) I am getting my
Bruin affairs in order, and it has never before been clearer to me
how much UCLA is trying to "de-emphasize the student part."
For everyone preparing to graduate, you can empathize with the
never-ending academic counseling appointments and administrative
nonsense that you must endure to escape from UCLA. For those of you
who won’t be graduating for a while, consider this a preview of
your own personal nightmare which will pounce upon you sooner than
you think. I have a double major, which brings its own host of
inconveniences, and in some half-baked moment of insanity and an
attempt to make myself more marketable I added the business and
administration specialization (FYI – I’ve been interviewing since
October, and I still do not have a job). In one moment of panic, I
went to the counseling window at the College of Letters and Science
to speak with someone about my curricular distress, because heaven
forbid if I drag myself to Murphy at the crack of dawn to make an
appointment with a full-time counselor. I express my concern –
rather eloquently, I thought, given the extreme nature of my stress
– that some of the classes fulfilling requirements for the business
and administration specialization were seldom, if ever, offered.
The counselor at the window gave me a sympathetic smile and said
this was common and that students always have problems with these
classes because they are very infrequently offered. I almost lost
it. If this is a continuous problem that affects a number of
students, shouldn’t something be done to remedy this situation?
There was no mention of a policy in the works to combat this
injustice of scheduling, oh no, indeed, but the counselor at the
window very politely informed me that I wasn’t alone.
I was seething and thought I could not be more frustrated with
UCLA until I went over to the psychology department.
At the psychology department, I ran into more problems – one of
which was that the computers cannot be programmed to declare a
pre-major and a major.
I approached the first person I saw in the undergraduate
advising office with my problem, and she informed me that in order
to enroll in one particular class I needed to be declared
pre-psychology, which meant I had to drop English as my major and
risk not being able to get into some of those juicy upper division
seminars that fill up in the first 15 minutes of first pass. I
explained my situation to this same individual in the psychology
department and was told that double majors always have this
problem. Thinking I had finally found an ally, I asked what sort of
arrangements I could make to work around this. When she replied
that she had just told me what I needed to do, I almost lost it
(again). I have found it to be counterproductive to yell at people
when you want them to help you, so I left in a huff. I had to drop
my English major to enroll in one psych class and re-declare it
after enrollment. My question yet again is, if this is a common
problem, why is it not being fixed? With all the amazing things
computers can do these days, I find it difficult to believe that
something cannot be done to update the current system so that it
can handle a major and a pre-major and not inconvenience students
in the process.
And furthermore, as if that was not enough in terms of
de-emphasizing the student part of UCLA, what is going on with the
rapidly decreasing amount of services for students? Am I the only
one who remembers when ASUCLA had a travel agency on the A-Level of
Ackerman Union? I wanted to work there, and suddenly, it was gone.
This seemed like a valuable service that students could utilize,
and I now see this as the start of the rapid elimination of student
services and an increase in the amount of outside vendors coming to
campus. What about ASUCLA Graphic Services in Ackerman and LuValle,
which has now been replaced by the outside vendor Pulse? What
happened to the Peer Health Counselors, those wonderful individuals
who would take your blood pressure and give massages on the
Kerckhoff Patio? Where is the Healthy Body Shop? (Please note the
PHCs and Healthy Body Shop are not part of ASUCLA.) Then I hear
that the Treehouse is being replaced by outside vendors as well. On
the topic of the Treehouse, I am still reeling from the switching
of the trays on the chicken platter line from the deep, black trays
– which seemed to hold much more rice (or the starch of your
choice) and salad – to the shallow trays. The switch in tray size
was accompanied by a price increase; they used to cost under $4.
What is going on here?
I am concerned. I am alarmed. I am worried that incoming
students will think this is how it always has been and not expect
UCLA to put the emphasis on students. I hope this column draws all
kinds of responses from ASUCLA explaining to me what has gone so
horribly wrong, that at UCLA, we would seek to "de-emphasize the
student part." Mission Accomplished ASUCLA, or should I say
UCLA?
Call me old-fashioned and naive, but I like the idea of UCLA as
a school and not a business. Perhaps instead of looking at the
bottom line in terms of dollars, we could look at how to make
students feel more involved on campus. It sounds like a PR problem
more than a money problem to me. It is difficult to encourage and
foster any sort of community at UCLA while simultaneously
"de-emphasizing the student part."
But perhaps fostering a campus community is not the goal, for it
certainly doesn’t seem to be.