Tuesday, November 17, 1998
Advocacy group subsists as result of pledge drive
CALPIRG: Environmental organization adds fees to supporters’ BAR
accounts
By Cathy Collins
Daily Bruin Contributor
Thanks to the efforts of dozens of student volunteers, last week
1,120 UCLA students pledged to support the California Public
Interest Research Group (CALPIRG), a student-run environmental
advocacy group.
CALPIRG, which has chapters at seven UC campuses, must receive
support from 15 percent of the student body to continue to exist on
campus, according to an agreement with the UC Board of Regents.
Each quarter, CALPIRG volunteers organize a drive to sign up enough
students to meet the 15 percent requirement.
Students who pledge CALPIRG agree to pay a $5 fee for three
quarters that is added to their Billings and Receivables (BAR)
account. The money goes to a general state fund and is reallocated
by a state board made up of students from each campus, according to
Sujatha Jahagirdar, a full-time employee of CALPIRG at UCLA.
Jahagirdar called the drive "grass-roots organizing at its
finest." She said 60 student volunteers spent a total of 330 hours
talking to students on Bruin Walk.
CALPIRG is the only student advocacy group on campus that
receives support from fees added to students’ BAR accounts.
Jahagirdar said that the pledge drive not only creates a secure
funding base for the group’s many programs and lobbyists, but it
also follows the group’s philosophy of student activism.
"We want students to become involved. One of the easiest ways to
do this is to have them pledge on their BAR statements. Other
student groups can choose to set up an account in this way, but
they haven’t," Jahagirdar said.
Prior to 1990, students could pledge to support CALPIRG by
paying a waivable fee that automatically appeared on their billing
statements. Students who did not want to pay the fee had to check
off a box on their form. But, the UC Office of the President felt
that many students were unaware that they were paying to CALPIRG
and other organizations, according to Jerry Mann, the director of
student support services for ASUCLA.
"The Office of the President felt that it was unfair for
students to have to pay for something they were not fully cognizant
of," Mann said.
Mann said that the removal of this fee effectively killed
CALPIRG at UC campuses, until it came up with a new method of
funding from student pledges on campus.
CALPIRG negotiated a new contract with the regents in 1994 that
made its existence contingent on the number of students that would
sign up through pledge drives every quarter. After students sign
up, the bill appears on their BAR accounts if CALPIRG signs up the
required 15 percent of the student body.
"We wanted the 15 percent because we wanted (CALPIRG’s
existence) to be a community decision," Jahagirdar said.
CALPIRG volunteers described the pledge drive as both
challenging and rewarding.
"When students realize that you’re working for issues they care
about – the environment, consumer protection … they’re generally
more willing to pledge," said Cathy Chang, a second-year
pre-political science student and one of four CALPIRG state board
members from UCLA.
Azadeh Khatibi, a second-year biology student and CALPIRG
volunteer, described how the drive allows the organization to
determine what issues are important to students.
"When people pledge, they check off what they want to support on
an issue survey. I know people, for example, at UCLA, are really
excited about getting involved in recycling, so they check it off
on the sheet," Khatibi said.
CALPIRG is a division of the Public Interest Research Group
(PIRG), a consumer activist group with 70 chapters across the
nation. The CALPIRG chapter at UCLA focuses on four specific
campaigns: hunger and homelessness, recycling, pesticides and clean
water.
The amount of money that is reallocated by the state board to
the UCLA chapter depends on the types of programs that are funded
on campus. Different campaigns that CALPIRG is working on include
stopping the use of pesticides in schools of the Los Angeles
Unified School District, creating a centralized recycling program
at UCLA, hosting speakers about hunger and homelessness, and
funding lobbyists for clean water bills, Jahagirdar said.
"Pledge week is important not only because it symbolizes a huge
accomplishment on the part of the chapter, but it also allows us to
fight those immense problems," she said.
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