Commission serves UCLA, Los Angeles communities

Sanchez is the community service commissioner and Tang is the
community service assistant

commissioner.

By Sunny M. Sanchez and Terrill Tang

Is the responsibility of the Undergraduate Students Association
Council (USAC) to accurately represent the undergraduate student
body at UCLA? 

I encourage UCLA undergraduates to research the Associated
Students UCLA Undergraduate Students Association (ASUCLA USA)
Constitution to fully grasp what exactly student representatives
commit to upon installment. The preamble of the constitution
specifically states their responsibilities are “to recognize,
represent, and support the diversity of needs and views of students
at the University to provide for the expression of student opinion
and interests to the community at large on issues affecting student
life.”Â 

In relation to USAC commissions, the ASUCLA USA bylaws
specifically delineate the roles and responsibilities of each
commission. The bylaws state that the community service
commissioner is responsible for coordinating student-organized and
student-initiated activities which are concerned with the social,
political, environmental and/or educational improvement of the
community that surrounds the campus.

In reference to the Daily Bruin editorial (“USAC
must reform its commissions system,” Viewpoint, April
30), deeming the community service commissioner as
“apolitical” is completely inaccurate. All of the
projects that serve the Los Angeles community under the auspices of
the CSC were created in response to local and state legislature
that has negatively affected public education, health care and even
juvenile law. Since 1965, UCLA undergraduate students have
engaged in efforts to ameliorate community disenfranchisement
created by discriminatory policies based primarily on citizenship
status and socioeconomic underrepresentation. 

The community service commission mentors and tutors children and
adults with the mission of empowering our Los Angeles communities
and providing resources for their target populations. To
effectively hold such a large responsibility, the community service
commissioner must maintain daily contact with the undergraduate
UCLA constituency. There are more than 100 UCLA undergraduate
volunteer directors that operate out of the Community Service
Commission office seven days a week and countless other UCLA
students who drop in weekly for office hours and community resource
references. One of the commission’s goals this year is
to support the project directors and be accessible to the UCLA
campus. Even when students have called our office requesting
information for other community service programs and organizations
on campus, we efficiently direct them as well. Clearly, the
commissioner serves more than just his commission’s
constituents and represents the entire undergraduate student
body.

All funding for the Community Service Commission goes directly
toward supporting and sponsoring community service
projects. For this reason, the Community Service Commission is
financially limited in its ability to invest in public on-campus
campaigning on political issues during USAC
elections. However, this does not free the commissioner from
his responsibility to represent the undergraduate
constituency. This year for example, the CSC has been involved
in the efforts to save the BruinGo! program. Along with USAC,
the commission sponsored and actively participated in the Post 9/11
candlelight vigil. The CSC also aided general representative
Theodore Apostol’s petition campaign to curb parking fee
increases by helping to collect student signatures. 

On a less visible front, the CSC co-sponsored the 24-hour Study
Hall every quarter, helped with the annual Daisy Day event,
contributed manpower and resources to the Student Welfare
Commission’s (SWC) annual Children’s Walk for Life, and
co-sponsored the 1st Annual Our Lady of Peace Health Fair, which
was organized by Philipinos for Community Health (PCH) and served
more than 400 individuals in the San Fernando Valley. In May, the
CSC will again be assisting in the Cultural Affairs
Commission’s annual Jazz Reggae Festival. 

The CSC office is one more vehicle providing access to education
and represents a large undergraduate constituency. Its full
participation and involvement with the UCLA in L.A. campaign this
year alone validates its vast and important contributions not only
to the UCLA community, but to various communities in the greater LA
area as well. 

The CSC’s co-programming and co-sponsoring efforts with
other campus organizations clearly appeal to a wider spectrum of
undergraduate students than the editorial implies. The
Community Service Commission’s mission “to provide UCLA
students with the opportunity to develop social understanding and
leadership through community service projects that outreach and
serve surrounding communities in the hopes of improving their
overall quality of life” underscores our effort to ensure
that UCLA undergraduates maximize their college
experience. With this in mind, we urge undergraduate students
to determine for themselves the value of having the community
service commissioner as a voting member of USAC and as a
contributor to diverse representation.