Monday, August 27, 2007
Speaking of which
Speaking of the UCSA, I picked up a letter from UC Davis's graduate student government (They have a seperate student government, which means it has responsibilities and such to go along with its budget, rather than having a fluffy ASUC to demand stuff from and, without exception, have those demands met at no cost) to the UCSA Board of Directors. You can find it here and Beetle Beat Extended (folks who've been chilling here long enough know the reference). Summary:
In the June 2007 UC Davis Graduate Student Association Assembly meeting, the Assembly voted not to approve the UCSA Budget for FY 2007-08. The Assembly asked us to write a letter explaining why we did not approve the budget, and which specific line items concerned us most. Recall that, last fall, the UC Davis undergraduate student government withdrew from the UCSA after refusing to pay higher membership fees. It looks like the graduate student government isn't too impressed either. The complaints are essentially:
The UCSA spends too much money on staffers to come to campuses and try to organize. Since organizing can be done at a local level by campus volunteers, that money should be spent where the UCSA has a unique position, which means in terms of staff to communicate with the legislature, Regents, and media.
The UCSA wastes a shitload of money, including an enormous budget to make a website that still sucks, and doesn't even properly name the UCSA.
The UCSA needs to move from Oakland to Sacramento.
It's hypocritical to whine about fee increases by the legislature while the UCSA is raising fees just as fast, and since the UCSA sucks at actually stopping fee increases, there's no "investment" benefit.
Of note are UCSA efforts to run fee referenda at various campuses. Prepare early!
Some other random UCSA errata:
Does the Graduate Assembly pay its share of UCSA representation? Technically, the ASUC as a whole is the member, which means that the payment may just come directly from the Senate budget. Since the GA gets all the money graduate students pay in fees, this would mean that graduate students not only get free representation in the Senate, they get representation in the UCSA on undergraduate dimes.
From the UCSA website:
Since last summer, we've held rallies and press conferences in district and in Sacramento, collected thousands of post cards, and testified at budget and education hearings in Sacramento. We've made presentations to elected officials, UC Regents, faculty, and alumni. We've built stronger relationships with coalition partners and CSU students locally and statewide. We've researched, tracked, proposed legislation, and much more.
We have accomplished a lot... Anyone notice something about that list of "accomplishments"? Such as the fact that none of them actually represent achieving any goals?
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