Matthew Murray
By Robert Salonga
DAILY BRUIN STAFF
[email protected]
The nominated student representative for the UC Board of Regents
for 2003-04 has several goals in mind over the next two years:
change university admissions tests, plan for the opening of UC
Merced, and play a lot of soccer.
“I’ve been playing soccer since elementary
school,” said Matthew Murray, adding that he plays intramural
soccer at Berkeley.
Pending approval from the board, the second-year UC Berkeley
student is also ready to slide tackle the pressing issues facing
the university system, all while pursuing a degree in architecture
and a minor in city planning.
One of the first tasks he’d like to take on is
standardized tests, and he believes the UC should begin leaning
toward achievement tests rather than the aptitude tests such as the
SAT I, embraced by most universities.
“I would be pleased to see the SAT I changed, if not
eliminated,” Murray said. “It has limited, if any,
predictive ability in how well students do in college.”
But with an achievement test, Murray said, you can identify a
person’s educational background rather than aptitude skills
tested by the SAT I.
“You get rid of innate biases and differences in
people,” he said.
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And with the anticipated surge of 60,000 additional students
into the UC by 2010, Murray is cautious before considering
enrollment caps to help stem the tidal wave.
“Capping enrollment may preserve education for the
students here, but it ignores those who qualify but still
don’t get in,” he said.
Murray hopes the addition of UC Merced ““ the tenth campus
slated to enroll 1,000 inaugural students in 2004, the first UC
built since the 1960s ““ will alleviate some of this
surge.
“Opening Merced will provide a campus for the state to
grow into,” he said. “But for now, we’ll need to
deal with (enrollment surge) on a campus-by-campus
level.”
Born in San Diego, Calif., Murray lived briefly in New York
before settling in Orange County, where his father was a professor
in cell and developmental biology at UC Irvine.
When he arrived at Berkeley, he looked to get involved with the
school’s storied political atmosphere. After sifting through
the countless groups on campus, he found there was no current
chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union in the area. So he
and a friend started one.
The group now attracts a following of 40 active members with
more than 400 on its e-mail list.
On the academic side, Murray specializes in architecture and
city planning for the diversity in curriculum he says it
provides.
“It incorporates a wide range of academic
disciplines,” he said. “You have to know environment,
how people interact and have good economic sense to be a good city
planner.”
The science and history classes he takes also help him to retain
some of his teenage interests.
“When I was in high school, I thought I’d be a
scientist. But then I also got into politics,” Murray
said.
In between his school and extracurricular obligations, Murray
tries to act like a typical college student. One way is through
soccer, which in high school he both played and refereed.
As his term rolls around, Murray realizes he will likely find
little time to fall back into the pleasures of college as the lone
student representative on a board serving 183,000 students.
“It’s unreal. I’m about to dedicate the next
two years of my life to this,” he said.
Well, maybe not the entire two years.
“I’ll also go to class, I suppose.”