After student regent Jodi Anderson cast the one dissenting vote
against passing the new budget, the Daily Bruin sat down with
Anderson to discuss why she did, as well as the influence of the
protestors on the Board of Regents’ decisions.
Daily Bruin: Were you surprised you were the only regent to
vote against the new budget?
Jodi Anderson: I was a little bit surprised that I was the only
one. I thought there might have been a few others.
DB: Was your vote more symbolic, or were you actually not in
support of the new budget?
JA: Good question. As a student regent, the vote is sometimes
symbolic, but what I really tried to do prior to the meeting and
during the meeting was to make sure I was sharing information with
regents that helped them to understand my concerns, beyond just the
fact that I was opposed to some pieces of the budget. To really try
to help them understand why I was opposed to them and trying to
make sure that we were really thinking about the impact of our
decision and what that would mean for the future of our
university.
DB: What do you see as the role of the student regent? Is it
better to always be against budgets containing fee increases and to
continually harp on that, or is it better to compromise?
JA: That’s kind of what I tried to do last week. I can
understand why we need to raise fees. Given the decline in state
support, we don’t really have a lot of options right now. But
what I thought was shortsighted was the decline in return to aid
for undergraduate students. Given that fees have been increasing
for the last four years now, if we don’t stay committed to a
higher return to aid, in the longer term there’s going to be
a negative effect on students. I could have voted for the budget if
we had amended it to include that.
DB: Do you think the lower return to aid will stay at 25
percent, or will it go back up to 33 percent?
JA: I think that people will really have to fight to return it
to 33 (percent). The 25 percent was chosen because it covered the
increase in student fees, but what wasn’t articulated as well
and as clearly, and what I tried to make sure was clear to people
was that it doesn’t cover the increased cost of attendance.
So all these other expenses that we all know students have, it
doesn’t account for. If we do only support the 25 percent,
it’s really crucial that people realize that we’re not
covering the full increased costs.
DB: What effect, if any, did the protestors have upon the
regents?
JA: I would say that probably the student comments had more of
an impact on the regents this time than the folks who were
protesting outside.
DB: In general, what kind of opinion do the regents have
toward the protestors?
JA: Well, in general I think when you have students outside the
meeting protesting, there’s always some intention of getting
the regents to understand that students are really upset about the
issue, whatever issue it may be. But I also think that coming in
and speaking during public comment is really important because
that’s when you have the regents around the table and you can
provide some perspective and information regents can follow up on
during the meeting.
DB: Is there enough student access to the regents? What
could be done to improve access?
JA: I think access could be improved in a number of ways. One is
rotating meetings around more campuses so we have more meetings on
campuses with undergraduates. And I think it was really important
that the meeting wasn’t shut down by protestors. It’s
important that we show we can provide access at undergraduate
campuses and still have a process that works. We also have campus
visits in between our board meetings, and it’d be great if
when we have these campus visits, we could break up into smaller
groups and have the regents meet with small groups of students to
do sort of back-and-forth Q&A. Even though public comment is
important, it’s not a conversation, it’s a one-way
communication. We need to be thinking more creatively about
creating more meaningful exchanges. I’ve also worked with the
University of California Students Association to try to identify
regents to bring to their meetings. Obviously that’s a
particular group of students, but I think a really important one to
have more contact with the regents.
Interview conducted by Colleen Honigsberg, Bruin senior
staff.