Three members of the UCSD A.S. Council attended the University of California Student Association’s annual congress in August, at which the yearlong action agenda was set.
UCSA is a student coalition that aims to serve the interests of UC students and to promote cooperation between university student governments and student organizations concerned with higher education. It is also considered by the UC Regents to be the voice of students, represented at the regents’ meetings by the UCSA chair.
The new chair, A.S. Vice President External Steven Klass, was elected at the congress in August.
UCSA has set three action agenda items in place for this year. A voter registration campaign will be run in conjunction with Youth Vote, a campaign run by a coalition of political student groups that seeks to increase student voting. UCSA is interested in increasing student voting numbers to heighten the standing of student issues within government.
“”The problem with students not voting is that even though there are 2 million students, politicians do not listen to people who do not vote,”” Klass said.
UCSA will also be heading a “”no on information ban”” campaign, which will provide information on why to vote against the Racial Privacy Initiative on ballots in March of 2004. The initiative, if passed, would remove all racial information from admissions materials to the university.
In addition, a “”no tuition increase”” campaign will be run in the midst of California’s budget crisis this year. UCSA will be lobbying the state legislature to maintain funding to protect student tuition and fees from being increased, which the association has successfully done for the past eight years.
Gov. Gray Davis has announced that public institutions will be facing a 20 percent funding cut in the next budget due to California’s deficit. If faced with a 20 percent cut to the state budget, UCSA believes student tuition fees will have to be increased.
“”If the UC funding is decreased by 20 percent, things are going to have to be cut across the board,”” Klass said. “”If it was just a minor decrease, they could make cuts in administration, outreach or research.””
The regents addressed budget issues at a meeting last Thursday, which Klass attended. The regents gave their report on future budget problems and discussed long-term planning, which Klass said was a good thing. Klass gave a presentation on UCSA’s student interest priorities for the budget.
Klass said that UCSA and the regents have had a good working relationship in the past and feels that they will have one again if he does his job well.
Interested UCSD students can participate in working on both national and statewide issues with UCSA through the A.S. External Office, located in the Price Center.