DAVE HILL/Daily Bruin Senior Staff USAC president-elect
Karren Lane speaks about her background, ideas and
goals for next year. Lane, along with the rest of next year’s USAC,
will be installed tonight in Kerckhoff 417.
By Robert Salonga
Daily Bruin Staff
Karren Lane does not expect to change the campus overnight, but
with enough work she believes she can give Bruins reason to feel
confident in their student government.
As the Undergraduate Students Association Council
president-elect, Lane will be officially installed along with other
elected members at tonight’s council meeting. The first half
of the meeting will be run by this year’s council, then new
members will take the oath of office and conduct the rest of the
meeting.
Lane said on Monday she is ready to take on the duties of her
position and hopes to improve public opinion of USAC on campus.
“I’m excited and confident that council will be very
productive next year and people will be proud to talk about
USAC,” she said.
To achieve this productivity, Lane plans to increase student
involvement in its government by eliminating the feeling that USAC
is exclusive to its chambers in Kerckhoff Hall.
“I want to break down the myth that you can only be
involved with USAC if you hold a title within it,” Lane said.
“I’ll consider our term a success if we get people
coming to Kerckhoff who aren’t usually there.”
Born and raised in Gardena, Calif., Lane moved to Carson and
attended Bishop Montgomery High, a private school in Carson. Though
she was a member of the speech and debate team, Lane admits she was
not very involved in high school, partly because of what she said
was an excluding environment.
“The school had very few African students and there was
cultural segregation. It was very isolating to students of
color,” she said.
The youngest child of Watts-born parents, she has an older
brother and her sister Kimberly is a graduate of UCLA.
Her family comes from what she calls a “southern
experience,” and her grandmother was among those who took on
domestic jobs for whites during the post-slavery period.
“My grandmother took on these jobs and was referred to as
a “˜girl,’ as in people she would work for referred to
her as their “˜girl,'” Lane said.
Lane’s grandmother is an example of a source of her
strength, she said, adding that she takes her grandmother’s
experience with her wherever she goes.
“I’m using the struggle of my ancestors to inspire
me to go forward and to not let people forget that
experience,” she said.
Along those lines, Lane abides by a quote first said by African
revolutionary Steven Biko, who fought against apartheid in South
Africa.
“”˜The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the
mind of the oppressed.’ It’s about abandoning the
victim mentality and recognizing the ability to affect your life
and the lives around you,” she said.
Before arriving at UCLA, Lane spent her first semester in
college at UC Berkeley as a history student. But she was not
satisfied with what she called the core classes’ Eurocentric
view. Once at UCLA, she took her first sociology class ““ a
broad study of Los Angeles ““ and learned about the
city’s changing demographics, how communities formed and how
people formed alliances.
She said her studies have helped her in coalition building.
Additionally, her involvement in organizations such as the Student
Retention Center, Student-Initiated Outreach Committee and
especially serving as chair of the African Student Union have
shaped her leadership skills.
“Working with ASU has helped me go beyond the African
community and build bridges between several different
communities,” Lane said.
A fourth-year student, Lane is a member of the last class
admitted into UCLA under affirmative action after Proposition 209,
the California voter initiative which took effect in the UC as the
entering class of 1998 was admitted. Last week, the UC Regents
repealed SP-1 and 2, system-wide policies implemented in 1995 that
eliminated affirmative action in hiring and admissions.
But the symbolic victory of the repeal does not erase the
necessity of programs like affirmative action at a public
university, Lane said.
“Although SP-1 and SP-2 are rescinded, functionally
they’re still in place in the Academic Senate,” Lane
said.
The Academic Senate is a governing body of each university that
shares its power with the UC Regents over academic matters. It
performs an advisory role to the UC on budget matters as well as
faculty promotions and appointments.
To emphasize the need for affirmative action and similar
programs, Lane said she will work on two goals, including working
with the Academic Senate to implement comprehensive admissions
policies.
“In order for us to have a diverse campus population, we
have to start a policy that allows for that,” Lane said.
Her second goal is to educate students on why corrective
measures have to be in place.
“Affirmative action is recognizing that there’s an
imbalanced field as a result of historical oppression and
discrimination, and those things don’t go away in a year or a
decade,” Lane said.
“We’re trying to put something in place that
corrects that, not just for a specific community but recognizing
that it brings us closer to democracy and humanity,” she
continued.
Another of Lane’s goals for office is to increase the
accountability of council offices ““ something she said was
not given proper attention this year.
Jeremy McKenzie, the newly elected facilities commissioner and
member of the S.U.RE. slate ““ which stands for Students
United for Reform and Equality ““ said from his interaction
with Lane he believes she is a capable leader.
“We both put forth that we’re willing to work with
people who weren’t on our slates,” McKenzie said.
“She needs to take all of council’s views and mold them
all together into one cohesive entity to avoid drawing lines across
the council table.”
Lane, who ran on the Student Empowerment! slate, echoed this
sentiment, saying it is impossible to do anything positive without
working with everyone on council.
“You’re not S.U.R.E., you’re not Student
Empowerment!, you’re not independent. You’re now a USAC
council member,” she said.
The 2001-02 Undergraduate Students Association Council will be
officially installed tonight at 7 p.m. in Kerckhoff 417.