Both Owen and Spencer are third-year English students.
By Charlotte Owen and Jordan
Spencer
The Undergraduate Student Association Council is a group of
undisciplined, immature and ineffective corporate university
puppets attempting to characterize itself as dedicated to student
representation.
What has the student government done this year aside from
staging a Welcome Week comprised of nothing so much as bells and
whistles? They are more pomp than pith.
True, the year is young ““ but if this year’s student
government wishes to supercede the institution’s historical
political impotence, then they better get on the stick.
Last year, an ineffective president unable to assert her
leadership in the face of self-serving, divisive student advocacy
groups paralyzed USAC. Whether this year’s president will be
any better is yet to be determined. But if the hollow, celebratory
tone of Welcome Week is any indication, it’s not looking
good.
Instead of bickering over which cause they will concoct an
ineffective protest for, USAC should focus on issues the student
population at large really cares about ““ like housing.
Upon visiting friends in the dorms, we were horrified to
discover that students are packed into study lounges. Residents are
promised that the situation will be remedied once De Neve Plaza is
fully operational ““ the same promise we were placated with
during our own dorm years. The delay is doubly problematic: not
only are lounge-dwellers faced with a sense of impermanence in
their living arrangements, but the rest of the residents on the
floor are left loungeless.
But we guess space isn’t the university’s or
USAC’s primary concern, as anyone who has ever tried to park
within a five-mile radius of UCLA knows.
Can USAC transcend its own history of fragmentary failure?
UCLA prides itself on the fact that it is part of the greater
Los Angeles community. It doesn’t seem to realize, however,
that Los Angeles is a commuter city. The state of our public
transportation is substandard compared to that of other major
cities such as New York, Boston or San Francisco.
Historically, Los Angeles has picked up the slack through
parking structure behemoths, wide-spread valet service and a
virtual wasteland of asphalt dedicated to providing drivers with a
place to park their vehicles.
We’re not asking that USAC advocate for a student valet
service, nor that they strive to alleviate the city’s
vehicular saturation ““ they couldn’t if they tried. We
do expect them, however, to realize that, as members of the Los
Angeles community, many students must drive to school and those
students need to be accommodated.
At the same time, the university’s plan to dig a hole to
China via the Intramural Field in the name of parking is
unconscionable. Nobody wants to walk through clouds of construction
dust on the way to class, nevermind the noise pollution.
Contradicting ourselves you say? Nay, say we. By the time of the
parking lot’s completion, we will have been without an IM
field for several years ““ because we all know how punctual
the university is at completing its construction projects. And even
when they do finish, the parking will be so overpriced that most
students will continue to drive the streets of Westwood, searching
in vain for the ever-elusive free parking space.
Even if students decide to bite the bullet and pay whatever
exorbitant fee the university sets, the size of the structure will
likely be unable to accommodate them all. So what is the solution
USAC should pursue? Pursue a solution that ensures reasonably
priced parking to all students.
And now for some dead horse beating ““ and we’re not
just talking about USAC harping about SP-1 and SP-2.
There has been much discussion of late in the Daily Bruin of the
fact that Westwood is not a college town. More of a retirement home
for upper and middle-class rejects of the entertainment industry,
really. Why does USAC allow the homeowners’ associations to
control an area dominated by students? We are the bread and butter
of local businesses.
From an economic point of view, therefore, our representatives
(USAC, supposedly) ought to be the dominant force in local
decision-making processes.
Our aim is not to unproductively deny the potential for
effective student leadership, but to issue a challenge to the
representatives we ourselves helped elect.
Can USAC transcend its own history of fragmentary failure in the
name of student welfare?
We sure hope so.