Issues

Student Empowerment: Social Consciousness Through the ASUC

It is often difficult to see how the ASUC can have any impact whatsoever on campus or in the wider community. The truth is, the ASUC is what its members make of it. It has the potential to be a High School ASB, or a sound and serious political force that is concerned with issues that impact and interest students, as well as others in the vicinity of our campus.

Just this semester, a CalSERVE Elected Official was featured on the cover of TIME Magazine in a special on students and civic engagement. When national and local media decide to ask student government officials about topics pertaining to students, it is important to have somebody weigh in who is well-informed on the issues and is guaranteed to have students’ backs. CalSERVE elected officials and community members are committed to making sure that students play a role in education-related legislation on the national, state-wide, and local level. Anything about us, without us, isn’t for us.

CalSERVE officials recognize the importance of community service, our members and officials having participated in and supported, both in and out of the ASUC, initiatives as diverse as Circle K International and the Magnolia Project’s Alternative Breaks in New Orleans. Community service organizations like Habitat For Humanity promote student activism and engagement with our world, and CalSERVE is dedicated to ensuring that such programs continue to thrive both on and off campus.

We also recognize how important it is for the ASUC to make symbolic gestures in support of other students around the country, not because these have an immediate practical effect or impact on a situation, but because cumulatively such gestures of support have the potential to shift and shape public opinion. When dozens of national newspapers report that student governments on hundreds of campuses around the country are organizing for divestment from the government of Sudan, for example, decision-makers in our country and in the University administration begin to pay attention. Our campus and our student government can play a small but crucial and important role in such movements. With CalSERVE officials in the ASUC, we can be sure that our student government will proudly serve us on campus and represent us off-campus.

Student Fees

Student fees have gone up by 93% percent in just the last 7 years without substantial increases in student services or financial aid. Graduate student fees have gone up even more, and this year the Regents voted to increase Graduate school fees by 15% every year for the next three years. The situation in California and the UC system has been dire in terms of keeping the UC affordable to all students. This year the state of California has a $16 billion deficit and the Governor has proposed cuts of $332 million dollars from the UC system. The UC Regents are considering a plan to cut costs by INCREASING STUDENT FEES, cutting enrollment growth, and cutting additional funding to services such as mental health all the while increasing compensation to chancellors and the out-going UC president.

Students have fought long and hard for the past seven years to not only prevent fee hikes but also to restore funding for academic preparation programs, which has always been a line-item vetoed by the Governor since he’s been in office. All of those years, students were able to bring back at least a portion of the funding, but only thanks to the hard work and dedication of students who recognized the importance of these matters. CalSERVE candidates are dedicated to devoting their time and energy to making sure that these issues are a #1 priority in the ASUC. We will continue to rally the Regents and the state to ensure that education remains a priority in our state budget. (For more information about the history of tuition increases at the UC, as well as the complex impact it has on higher education, please read this paper by State Senator Albert Rodda.)

Campus Safety

UCPD Report on Violent Crime 2003-2007According to UCPD’s Annual Crime Report, violent crime in Berkeley has risen consistently over the past few years, even though the average state-wide has gone down over the same period of time. While the University has already taken steps to protect students, we need to make sure that students are playing an active, not passive, role in such measures. While making sure that protecting students is a priority as opposed to patrolling students or protesters is one step to make sure that UCPD resources are being used wisely, we must also promote student consciousness about self-protection. Programs like BearWalk should be promoted and expanded, but so should more simple solutions like walking with a group of friends, avoiding darker areas of campus, and carrying rape whistles or flash lights.

UCPD Pie Chart on Types of Crime in BerkeleyIt is also important not to sensationalize the occurrence of such incidents. Even though violent crime is on the rise, according to another UCPD report, the vast majority of crimes that occur in Berkeley–and the ones that have an impact on a wider range of students–are in the category of theft/larceny. While these crimes can be reported, students rarely recover their lost property. These types of crimes can only be avoided by improving the safety of the Berkeley Campus and City as a whole, and thus require cooperation with city officials as well as University officials. Things like improved lighting on streets populated by students, like Parker Avenue or on the North Side of campus, can have an impact on helping students feel more secure as they walk to and from classes, parties, or other events in Berkeley. CalSERVE officials will promote smart policies as well as student-initiatives that will help enhance the safety of students on campus and in surrounding areas. We will also fight to make sure that students are playing an active role in formulating policies, rather than one in which students respond after a policy has already been implemented or proposed.

Student Rights: Protecting Privacy and Free Speech

CalSERVE has continually stood for the rights of all students. If students are being harassed or silenced for their political views, either by the administration or other on-campus entities, or by off-campus individuals or organizations, CalSERVE elected officials will make sure that students find strong and solid support in the ASUC.

For example, in the past two years, the University has adopted a policy that severely compromises the privacy of students living in the dorms or using the campus network to access the Internet. Particularly, the University has agreed to forward “settlement letters” from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) that demand students pay thousands of dollars for alleged copyright infringement at the threat of legal action. Brent Rust, the Communications Manager for the University of Wisconsin’s Division of Information Technology, explained that “these settlement letters are an attempt to short circuit the legal process to rely on universities to be their legal agent.”

While schools like the University of Wisconsin have refused to be party to the RIAA’s intimidating tactic of circumventing the legal system, our University has curiously decided to help the RIAA. CalSERVE elected officials will pursue University officials and ask them to reverse these policies. Furthermore, we will explore other options that will make such subversion of student privacy impossible in the future by exploring the possibility of ensuring that students have anonymous access to the Internet, as well as look into ways of discouraging students from violating the privacy of their peers by working with the RIAA to identify file-sharers in the dorms. (For more information on this issue, please visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation.)

Another issue is free speech on campus. While Berkeley is often remembered for the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s, this right should never be taken for granted and is only there as long as we stand up for it. CalSERVE officials will never support the University administration or off-campus entities in any actions which chill free speech by penalizing students or student groups for their speech activities.

Academic Freedom & Integrity

CalSERVE strongly believes in the value of academic freedom and will stand by professors, graduate students, and undergraduate students when their rights in this regard are threatened in a targeted way. However, we also recognize the serious threat posed by closed-door deals like the one that the University has adopted with British Petroleum, and more recently, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. CalSERVE officials support strong oversight and involvement in such deals to ensure that the integrity of the University’s academic research and programs is not threatened by outside political or economic interests.

In this regard, CalSERVE officials will work hard with the University to ensure that students have access to the decision-making process. The fact that British Petroleum’s deal with the University is “bad” is by no means a given, however it will have an impact that students should be aware of and should have the right to weigh in on while a deal is being constructed, not after the fact. By involving students throughout the entire process, students have the ability to salvage the best out of any proposal and reject the worst, rather than being presented with an “all-or-nothing” option after the University has already made a deal behind closed-doors. CalSERVE officials will call for transparency on the University’s part to ensure that students are involved in such processes which impact their academic experience from start to finish.

Environmental Sustainability

From campus development to daily student activities, our community of nearly 35,000 graduate and undergraduate students can have a considerable impact on the local environment. Through our mass purchase of particular goods and services, we also have an effect on the environment in other places around the world. CalSERVE officials are dedicated to ensuring that our campus behaves in a way that is conscious of its impact on the environment. We will be the first in ensuring that the University administration adheres to environmentally-friendly standards, as well as promoting consciousness within the student population. We are dedicated to promoting environmental sustainability and justice in small, practical ways. Every action counts.

We also believe in expanding the conversation about environmentalism beyond conservation and preservation, towards environmental justice, to examine holistically the inequalities that occur in the apportionment of environmental resources, as well as the ways in which certain areas suffer disproportionately from industrial waste and pollution than others.

Academic Preparation and Recruitment and Retention Centers

The vast disparities in high school and elementary school educations throughout our state are at this time no secret. In many places, such inequalities dis-proportionally, though not exclusively, impact communities of color. Many students, for example, have the advantage of having helpful counselors and teachers in high school who give them an idea of when to take exams like the SAT and SAT II, how to prepare for the exams, when to begin researching colleges, as well as how to write college application essays. Others have the opportunity to pay for expensive test-preparation courses.

However, in areas where the school budget cannot allow for this, and the quality of teaching is below par, students are severely disadvantaged and do not have an equal opportunity to attend the University of California due to factors like these. CalSERVE officials will support initiatives that seek to raise accessibility to higher education in such disadvantaged areas, such as academic preparation programs like the recruitment and retention centers. These initiatives help the University live up to its original mission of providing an education to people from all over the state of California.