Tuesday, March 4, 1997
INVOLVEMENT:
Others
all talk, no walk when it comes to school affairsBy Andres
Chang
When shit happens, there is talk and then there is action. Which
one do you use?
Before my first quarter at UCLA ended, I, like many other of my
fellow first years, put on the freshman fifteen. I had heard of
this infamous and sneaky devil before, and I had finally seen it
firsthand as fourteen dorm meals per week manifested itself in my
gut. The whole year went by with countless friends and
acquaintances (including my ex-girlfriend’s father) asking me the
same question with the obvious answer: "Did you gain weight?" No,
people, I’m just bloated all the time. Of course I gained weight!
At this point, there were two things that I could do about my
newfound mass: I could bitch about it, which wouldn’t do anything
to change my situation, or I could do something about it. Choosing
the latter, at the beginning of the next fall quarter I had made
the following resolutions: cut back on beef, cut back on cheese,
and run everyday. Since then, the extra pounds have disappeared and
the holidays saw no major changes as I resumed my healthy routines
as soon as the holidays passed. I was fed up with something and so
I took action to change it.
Many Bruins are fed up with the lack of attention they get at
those monstrously long lines at Murphy Hall and are equally fed up
with an administration and a board of regents that doesn’t give a
care about them. We all complain about it, but when push comes to
shove something needs to be done about the situation. That is why
there is Students First! When Students First! originally ran for
office, they said they would change student government and give
students more access to their education.
That is what was said, but what was done? Well, since Students
First! took office we now have the Booklending program. Thanks to
this program, Bruins can now check out books for the entire quarter
and return them at the end of the quarter free of charge! Did you
hear that, folks? Free books! Considering that most of us spend
over $200 on books alone, that’s a good program. Wait a second,
Students First! critic.
I’m just getting started.
Thanks to a tremendous amount of hardworking grass roots
organizers from your student government, USAC has been able to
lobby the administration to stop a $700 registration fee hike for
the past  not one but  two years. And that’s not all.
Though our beloved Congress wants to reduce financial aid, USAC has
since been able to lobby our representatives into  no, not
keeping financial aid  but into increasing it. By how much
has it been increased? Oh, by $17 million. That’s right, I said
million.
That saved money gives a lot of us Bruins  and when I say
"us" I mean those who are going to school full time, have two jobs,
are receiving financial aid, and anybody else who could use more
money in their pocket  a little bit of breathing room.
But hold on, misinformed malcontents, there’s more! Thanks to
the Internal Vice President’s office, the dorm meal coupons are
back and are worth more. Now students in the dorms have the freedom
to choose whether they can eat in the cafeterias, eat from their
thermal sack lunches, or eat at any on campus eatery at a reduced
price. I’d also like to mention the Scholarship Resource Center: a
central location where Bruins can locate the financial resources at
their disposal. That, just to name a few things, is what Students
First! has done. By the way, did I mention the anti-209
campaign?
Students First! isn’t perfect. For some reason a lot of students
tend to think that we all are a giant clique and that all of us in
Kerckhoff get along fine and dandy. Ha! Despite all the name
calling that’s been happening lately, I’ll tell you what we really
are: hardworking representatives keeping the needs of students as
our top priority and making the changes necessary to meet those
needs. Considering the choices we had last year for what kind of
changes we could have at UCLA Â and by that I mean a pub on
campus, a larger portion of registration fees going toward the
intra-fraternity council, or a more affordable education  I
think that the Bruins made the right decision.
Finally, Ben Hofilena, Jennifer Nelson, the current leadership
of the Bruin Democrats, and some others have recently jumped on the
bandwagon of USAC bashing. There was a forum open to all students
just a couple of weeks ago put on by USAC. They didn’t show up.
Where the hell were they? You know, it’s funny; these people are
really good at criticizing student government and complaining about
it, but I’ve never seen any one of them show up at an Internal Vice
President’s meeting, an External Vice President’s meeting, or a
President’s meeting. Never to volunteer their time to make higher
education more accessible, never to offer any suggestions on
programs that could benefit students, never even to say any of
their slanderous remarks to our faces! Hmmm … To them I say this:
there is talk and then there is action. Which one do you use?