Already I’m bracing myself for the sight of blue-clad Bruins United supporters around the Bruin Bear touting promises of a bar on campus, the business major, campus spirit and undies galore.
Taking the sarcasm out of my voice, I really am all for campus spirit and the improvement of student life at UCLA. Who wouldn’t be? Bruins United definitely has the priority straight of using Undergraduate Students Association Council as a tool and resource first and foremost for students.
But, as reflected within the past year, and even within its perspective of a more limited student government, Bruins United did not attain many of its goals, and the tangible services it promised remain to be seen.
In 2005, Bruins United emerged as a reactionary slate against Students First! with the principal agenda of opening student funding to all student groups on campus, as back then, only student advocacy groups could apply.
Bruins United counted the presidents of the Bruin Republicans and Bruin Democrats, as well as leaders from the Greek, Jewish, Christian and residential community as its founders, and the legacy has continued to this day. Its vision of fostering diversity of opinion, addressing problems that affected all students, enhancing student life and “having fun” certainly resonated with over half of the 30.94 percent of voters last year..
For the first time in UCLA history, Bruins United won a considerable majority of the council seats.
Out of the 10 contested spots, Bruins United took eight, including the presidency, both vice president offices, three commissioner positions and two of the three general representative positions.
Its primary platforms included fair funding, academics, transportation, and campus spirit and tradition ““ a solid set of concrete goals that would maintain the quality of life at UCLA.
With such an overwhelming Bruins United majority in office, I had hoped that these representatives, united in their aspirations and experiences, would uphold their promise to fight to address all these issues. And ““ dare I say it ““ I had hoped that they would dream big; that their vision would broaden in scope to provide opportunities for students to productively engage themselves beyond the confines of our bubble. But mostly, their offices did not meet my expectations.
President Gabe Rose has not brought presidential candidates to campus through a “We Matter 2008″ program. And most significantly, he has not accomplished his first platform goal ““ to institute “Concerts for Cash,” a series of huge concerts from which all proceeds would create revenue for student groups on campus.
The project does not seem feasible, because in order to even create profit, the concerts must sell 10,000 tickets. With an almost exorbitant budget of $80,000, “Concerts for Cash” practically took away potential funding from all the organizations that were ironically supposed to be beneficiaries of this initiative. “Concerts for Cash is not going to happen this year due to date conflicts,” Rose said. He said he thinks it is still feasible in coming years, but organization of this year’s concert series was seriously lacking .
In the past, Bruins United was responsible for bringing back Taco Bell and continuing efforts to “save” Undie Run every year (although we all know Undie Run will endure as long as there are stressed-out students come finals week). As for the bar on campus, well, it’s been a platform issue for years, but it has yet to be seen.
The most important thing Bruins United has done is extend funding to all student groups on campus. Its insistence on providing diverse opinions led it to appoint former Bruin Standard editor Michael Rafail to the Communications Board.
And this is the newspaper that proudly quoted its former editor, Alec Mouibian: “What’s the point of MEChA, when there’s already a Taco Bell on campus?”
Bruins United has historically shown that it isn’t driven to mold USAC and use its potential to truly make a difference and advocate deeper issues outside our rather perfect environment. In fact, USAC this year bore, for the most part, an uncanny resemblance to my high school’s ASB. Citing “school spirit” as a platform issue amounts to the same thing as the Republican Party mentioning “instilling patriotism” as its priority ““ it’s unproductive and simply maintenance of the restrictive UCLA bubble.
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