The Bottom Line- UC Santa Barbara

UC Student Regents Pay UCSB A Visit

By Amanda Garcia
Executive Managing Editor

University of California Student Regent Alfredo Mireles Jr. and Student Regent-Designate Jonathan Stein stopped by University of California Santa Barbara on Jan. 31 to discuss and promote the UC Student Regent Application process for next year’s regent-designate.

With students now contributing more financially towards paying for their UC education than the state of California, appointment of the new student regent-designate may garner more attention and scrutiny than ever this year.

“I felt enormous pressure when I took this job,” said Stein. “Students need the best possible advocate, period, and I’m still struggling with how to deal with that.”

Mireles explained how although student regents may craft a personal agenda at the beginning of their appointment, it’s difficult not to get caught up with the issues currently at hand for the Board of Regents.

“What you thought you were going to do as a student regent is completely different from what you end up doing in the job,” said Mireles. “The next student regent has to understand that a significant part of the job is responding and reacting to things outside their control.”

According to Miles Ashlock, associate director of the Office of Student Life, around five UCSB students apply for student regent designate each year, with no more than 20 applicants from each campus.

Since student regents must be enrolled full time at a UC institution, Mireles pointed out that many become fifth year students during their appointment. A student regent designate may graduate as an undergraduate then enroll as a graduate student at a UC institution.

As Sacramento continues to decrease state funding of higher education, UC students are clamoring for more student-friendly representation on the UC Board of Regents in hopes of deterring more tuition increases.

“It’s worth acknowledging that [students] are a minority voice in a way that is completely unacceptable on the Board of Regents,” said Stein. “Representation on the board is completely out of whack.”

However, Stein also acknowledged that student regents have the ability to influence policy in small, but important ways that often go unseen by the rest of the student body.

“We’re light years away from where we need to be with student regent interactions,” Stein said. “But we’re way ahead from where we were 12 months ago.”

When UCSB students asked Stein and Mireles what was the biggest challenge a student regent had to overcome, both agreed that it was balancing the strenuous time commitment expected of them.

“It has to be something you are really committed to outside reasons of personal gain,” said Mireles.

Applications for the 2013-2014 UC Student Regent must be turned in to the Office of the Chancellor by Feb. 23 at 5 p.m.

http://thebottomline.as.ucsb.edu/2012/01/uc-student-regents-pay-ucsb-a-visit

They will be at UC Santa Barbara on Tuesday (1/31)

UC Irvine on Thursday (2/2)

UCLA on Friday (2/3)

A more detailed schedule of events can be found on their respective Facebook pages.

The application is here. Alfredo Mireles Jr. and Jonathan Stein, the current Student Regent and Student Regent Designate, would be happy to answer any questions you have.

At this site, you can get updates on our activities and projects, read our positions, statements, and press releases, find daily news articles about public higher education, learn more about the structure and governance of the UC, and find ways to get more deeply involved in advocacy on behalf of students.

We hope you’ll check this site regularly and treat it as a resource. From time to time, we’ll have student contributors on our blog discussing issues important to students. We’ll also have video blogs from the Student Regent and Student Regent-Designate. The hope is to be as transparent about our work as possible, and to keep students as updated as possible.

We also want all students to be able to contact us whenever they desire. Email us anytime at contact@ucstudentregent.com.

Thanks. Together, let’s build a movement. Let’s save public higher education in California.

Alfredo Mireles Jr.
Student Regent

Jonathan Stein
Student Regent-Designate

The Student Regent and Student Regent-Designate urged the President to issue a statement reaffirming students’ right to be physically safe and secure when protesting on campus. The President agreed that he would and we expect that statement to be forthcoming.

The President said he was “extremely agitated and bothered” by the police actions at UC Berkeley on November 9, and reaffirmed that “student have strong First Amendment rights to gather and protest.” The Student Regent and Student Regent-Designate pressed him to state unequivocally that linking arms before tents on campus is non-violent protest. He agreed.

President Yudof also stated that he supports Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s statement from November 14, in which Birgeneau stated he found the November 9 police actions on campus to be “very disturbing” and granted amnesty to those students who were arrested. The President said he is “looking forward to a complete and thorough investigation” into the police behavior of that day.

The Student Regent and Student Regent-Designate restated their opposition to the cancellation of this week’s Regents meeting and asked what the University’s justification was. President Yudof stated that the Regents meeting was canceled out of concern for the safety of students.

The State of California’s unprecedented and short-sighted divestment from public higher education is a disastrous moral and economic choice. In the short term, it hurts students. In the long term, it will hurt all Californians.

The University of California is a nationwide leader in educating students who are the first in their families to go to college, students who come from underserved communities, and first-generation students who are the children of immigrants. Collectively and through sacrifice, the State of California has built an institution that excels at providing a world-class education to students who have faced the greatest challenges to access it.

And yet the State is choosing to tear that institution down. The State of California cut the UC by $650 million in the past year, with a $100 million trigger cut likely on the way. These latest cuts come on the heels of decades of declining funding. The cost is felt first and foremost by students, who face nothing but bad choices: work multiple jobs to make ends meet, take out enormous loans that will be paid back in a terrible job market, or drop out and pursue an education somewhere cheaper or not at all. Generations of Californians attended an excellent UC at low or no cost; today, those same Californians are forcing the next generation of students to attend a university under threat, and at a high and rising cost. It is privatization of our greatest public good, and a morally bankrupt choice on the part of our citizens and our state government.

It is also a short-sighted economic choice. For decades, the University of California has fueled this state’s economic success, by driving innovation and entrepreneurship and graduating thousands of highly skilled workers into the California economy. Defunding this institution may ease our budget problems today, but doing so will bear bitter fruit for decades to come, as we become a less attractive destination for businesses and entrepreneurs. Cutting the UC hurts every Californian’s opportunity to get a well-paying job, decreases our future tax revenues, and delays or prevents entirely the research breakthroughs that advance our society and our economy.

The Student Regent and Student Regent-Designate support the actions of students who call attention to the privatization of public education through courageous and peaceful protest. The police violence at UC Berkeley on November 9 was reprehensible and ought to be condemned, not defended, by campus and systemwide administration. We have additional concerns about freedom of speech – on the day of the protests, a Berkeley Law student was stopped by police officers while far from the events at Sproul Plaza simply for carrying a megaphone. When she was unable to produce a student ID, she was handcuffed, placed in a squad car, and cited for a misdemeanor. Free speech and providing equitable access to education have been hallmarks of the UC and particularly UC Berkeley — by suppressing speech that advocates for education access, we do violence to two of our most cherished principles.

The Student Regent and Student Regent-Designate oppose the decision to cancel this week’s Regents meeting. We understand that local law enforcement authorities recommended the meeting be postponed in the interest of public safety. However, students have a right to protest peacefully and make their voices heard forcefully; this action eliminates their opportunity to do that. We would support finding a way for student attendees to exercise their constitutional and moral right to protest while excluding non-student elements that raise the specter of violence and vandalism. We urge students who had made plans to travel to San Francisco for the Regents meeting to travel to Sacramento instead, and make student frustrations known to the state’s ultimate decision-makers.

To fund the University of California, the State needs revenues. The Student Regent and Student Regent-Designate support ending Proposition 13’s treatment of corporate property taxes and ending the two-thirds supermajority requirement for raising new revenues in the state legislature. The Student Regent and Student Regent-Designate also support increasing taxes on the wealthiest Californians. Those at the top of California society have benefited the most from the fact that California is a vibrant, innovative, and diverse place; in times of struggle, they should give back to make sure that other Californians have the same opportunities to succeed that they did.

We hope that our fellow Regents and the administration of the UC will be forceful advocates for new revenues for state government. To not do so leaves us with only a single, cynical choice every year: submit a funding request to the State and lobby for it despite knowing Sacramento is unlikely to meet it; search internally for savings after yet another budget cut that we knew was coming; and fill the balance of our budget deficit on the backs of students, pushing those in the middle class further to the margins.

We have a responsibility to fight for an alternative. Students are leading the way. We hope that the University of California and its leadership can join students in the fight to preserve truly public higher education for all our citizens. As the Student Regent and Student Regent-Designate, we have a responsibility to be the students who partner with the Regents and the University’s top decisions-makers. We will continue to advocate from within the system for the principles and beliefs driving student energy and passion.

Alfredo Mireles
Student Regent

Jonathan Stein
Student Regent-Designate