I am running for Vice President ““ Internal because I
believe that the Graduate Student Association is an important
resource for all graduate students at UCLA. I believe I can
contribute to making it more effective and responsive to its
constituents, the councils, the special interest groups and the
graduate student body as a whole regarding the many issues
surrounding graduate and professional schools ““ expanded
enrollment and graduate student diversity, to name but two ““
that will face us in the coming year.
As an Asian American graduate student, I am very concerned with
the question of diversity in the enrollment of the UCLA graduate
and professional schools. We have already seen what has happened to
admissions numbers for underrepresented minorities at the law
school. I believe GSA can keep this issue on the table.
Because I sit on the fellowship and differential fee
subcommittees of the Academic Senate’s Graduate Council, I
have become extremely aware of the complexity and difficulty of
keeping graduate student funding competitive. Graduate students in
all disciplines need to work together to keep graduate fellowships
and stipends up to a standard by which we can all live. We must
also consider more closely the effects of differential fees on
already impoverished students. I will use my Vice President ““
Internal position to encourage cross-campus cooperation in
discussing and working on issues that effect all parts of the
graduate campus.