Harmetz is the chair of the On Campus Housing Council.
By Adam Harmetz
I am responding to Idan Ivri’s column entitled
“Housing
decisions need student input“ (Viewpoint, Jan. 22). In
the column, Ivri delivers an opinion on the issues that makes
logical sense ““ and I applaud him because his facts were
completely accurate.
However, making price comparisons between on-campus and
off-campus housing is like comparing apples and oranges. Students
must choose to pay for one of two incomparable experiences.
The on-campus housing experience offers a unique opportunity of
living in a community of scholars. It offers resources for its
residents to grow both academically and personally. In addition,
one has to consider the cost of utilities, Internet, housekeeping
and food in the on-campus housing contract.
In contrast, the off-campus housing experience provides a sense
of independence through its distance from campus, less supervision
and self-sufficiency. Additionally, the extra expenses and rent
prices of off-campus housing cast doubt as to which is more
expensive.
Since most UCLA students face a choice between the on-campus
community and off-campus independence, it can be easy to try to
directly compare the prices of the two and label one as excessively
expensive.
Nowhere is the dichotomy between on-campus and off-campus
housing more apparent that in student advocacy. Housing
professionals have openly embraced student government on the hill,
and the On Campus Housing Council is the epitome of this
representation.
As chair of OCHC, I would like to refute the claim of OCHC as a
powerless party planner. While 50 percent of our time is dedicated
to using our hill-wide influence to create programs that foster a
sense of community among our 8,000 on-campus residents, the other
half of our time is vigilantly dedicated to solving
residents’ housing concerns. Issues like pedestrian safety,
ATM machines and housing handbook policy are researched by OCHC and
students’ opinions are investigated.
Through our weekly Policy Review Board meetings with housing
professionals, the administrators hear student concerns ““ and
listen. Within the next month alone, two crosswalks and two ATM
machines will be installed on the hill. Both of these were student
advocated proposals that the housing administrators were more than
willing to make their own.
The suggestion to create a new student advocacy group on the
hill consisting of USAC members would dissolve the warm and working
relationship residents and housing professionals currently enjoy
through the OCHC and PRB. The OCHC is made up of one resident from
each residence hall. As such, OCHC is able to concentrate on the
residents’ living experiences. USAC serves as a group looking
out for the campus as a whole. It would not be as prepared to face
and research the needs of the student residents. Indeed letting
USAC dialogue with housing would remove resident representation.
The student power to influence housing policy is in the right
place: the residents themselves.
Of course, one of the major issues every year is housing costs.
The reason housing costs were listed as a “future item”
in our October minutes is simple: the budget for 2002-2003 is not
formed and discussed until January and February 2002. Even now, an
OCHC task force is reviewing next year’s budget line-by-line.
While I don’t yet know what our recommendations to the
administrators will be this year, student input plays a crucial
role in the process.
Ivri is right to state that the student governments on the hill
need more power. The right to give more power, however, lies not
with housing administrators but with the residents themselves.
Housing professionals have built an excellent model for on campus
housing, and at its core is the willingness to listen to
students.
Many of the important, high profile issues student governments
on the hill face ““ such as housing costs, lounge residents,
activities fees ““ will come to fruition in the upcoming
months. As such, I think you will see the student governments on
the hill taking a more active role than they have before.
The OCHC takes the advice of Ivri seriously and intends to bring
resident issues to light. We also ask our constituency, the
residents, to take an active role in the process as well. The more
opinions, feedback, and commentary our residents can give us, the
more power the OCHC will have to catalyze change.
They can accomplish this by talking with their Resident
Assistant, attending building association meetings, or contacting
student government representatives, which every floor or building
has.
In short, the student input that Ivri seeks is a wonderful and
powerful idea. I take solace in the fact that the watchdog he seeks
already exists, and I shudder to think what the status of living on
the hill would be like if it didn’t.