August

September 1st, 2010 by SpencerM

Hey everyone,

First of all, thank you for taking the time to keep up with what I am doing as one of your ASUC Senators for the 2010-2011 school year. During the week of August 15th-20th almost every Senator arrived back in Berkeley to begin work on achieving our goals from the coming school year. Our ASUC EVP, Nanxi Liu, organized an extremely helpful weeklong senate training lecture series where we were able to listen to administrators, deans, and various people of influence on our campus.  I found this week a great way to get to know my fellow Senators and see if there are areas where we can callabrate because of our similar goals.

This past week I began to lay down the groundwork for my office, selecting my Chief of Staff, Robert Tolleth, and beginning to lay the foundation for reaching our goals for the coming year. This year two of our big goals are to increase sustainability on campus and make the UC campus area a safer place for students and faculty.

If you have any questions or comments feel free to email either myself at SpencerCMcLeod@gmail.com or Robert Tolleth at rtolleth@berkeley.edu. We would be more then happy to answer your questions or work with your student group to help make the ASUC work for you. Have a great semester!

All the best,

Spencer McLeod

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Senate Lowdown #1

August 31st, 2010 by Senator Elliot Goldstein

Hey Beautiful People!

 

News Flash:

 

1) Yesterday, I was officially sworn in as a Senator into the ASUC!

 

2) The First Senate Meeting of the Year: Wednesday @ 7:20pm in Eshleman. Meetings are always open to the public, and are entertaining the way that a circus is. Apparently, PBS will be there filming for a documentary they’re making on Berkeley.

 

3) There will be a speaker at this meeting on the Lower Sproul Project (BEARS) so come through if you’re interested. 

 

4) My “Office Hours”: Tuesday’s 4-5pm @ Free Speech Movement Cafe. Come by to raise an issue I should focus on or if you just want to chat =) (I’m here right now, if you’re reading this).

 

5) I will be on the External Affairs Standing Committee in the Senate. There’s also Financial Committee and Constitutional Review Committee.

 

6) To send an email to the entire ASUC Senate (which is forwarded directly to our email accounts) Senate@asuc.org.

My personal ASUC email: e.goldstein@asuc.org

 

My Senate Focus and Goals:

 

1) Sustainability: An ASUC Green Certification Program for Student groups and Publications to increase their sustainable practices and get more funding in the process.

 

2) Student Code of Conduct: Raising awareness about the Student Conduct Revision process (which hasn’t started yet due to cases still going through the pipe), I will be lobbying for all cases to be dropped under the faulty Code that we have now.

 

3) The Coca-Cola Contract is a 10-year consortium contract with the ASUC Auxiliary, Rec Sports, Intercollegiate Athletics, and RSSP, and is up this year for a 2-year extension. I am part of a coalition of students working to raise awareness about Coke’s  horrific human-right abuses, environmental degradation, and health issues. If you’re interested in getting involved come to Lothlorien (2405 Prospect St) on Friday @ 7pm.

 

4) CO-OP POWER! Increasing Co-op contact and influence in the ASUC. Sometime during Fall semester we will hold an ASUC Dinner at one of the co-ops. This will be a chance for you to meet ASUC officials and for them to see how a co-op actual runs (i.e workshift board, council, etc). Furthermore we want to see co-opers sitting on campus committees.

 

5) Voter Registration and Education for the November 2nd Election

 

 

Thanks for reading this update. I am honored to be your Senate representative in the ASUC. All I can promise is to do my best.

 

Cooperatively yours,

Elliot

   

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Lower Sproul Master Plan Wins Urban Design Award

August 30th, 2010 by Executive VP Nanxi Liu

The American Institute of Architects, California Council (AIACC) Design Awards program presented the UC Berkeley Sproul Student Community Center the Honor Award for Urban Design.

See more details here: http://aia-awards.com/AIACC/gallery/projDisplayCredits.php?CatID=6

Posted in City & State Affairs, Lower Sproul Revitalization, University and Campus Affairs | No Comments »

Senate Training

August 28th, 2010 by Senator Stefan Montouth

Senate Training was a really great experience. It was really good to see some faces to the names signed on the end of the campus wide emails or on a particular department websites. We had the honor of meeting several Vice Chancellors, Deans, and Directors, the many people who directly make the decisions that affect our education. It was great to meet the people that I will be working with this year from fellow senators to administrators. I am really looking forward to making great change this year.

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Deconstructing ASUC Autonomy

August 26th, 2010 by Senator Elliot Goldstein

note: this blog just touches on the issue of ASUC autonomy, and is a personal critique of my experience to date as an entering Senator. I will continually blog about this topic because it is an issue that interests me greatly.

As an incoming freshman the ASUC was billed to me as “the most autonomous student government in North America” - and atlas during Senate Training, Auxiliary Director Nad Permaul stood up and said this very statement as he described the history of the ASUC and how we lost our autonomy. The ASUC used to have control over its business operations, student rental space, and access to Eshleman. Today the Auxiliary stands over us (literally above us on the 4th floor) and power in business decisions lies in the Store Operations Board (SOB). This body recently disregarded the entire Senate in allowing Subway to come onto campus.

As a Senator I feel incredibly limited in my ability to take action in such a bureaucratic nightmare as the ASUC. This feeling is compounded by the problematic structure that the ASUC turned into after the 1998 Memorandum of Understanding aka the Commercial Activities Agreement which created the auxiliary and the SOB. The Auxiliary is a divison of the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs and therefore Nad Permaul reports to the University Administration, and also to the student leadership. As far as financial independence equaling autonomy, the SOB is where the real power of the ASUC lies, and on this body there are business decisions made which are not in the students best interest.

In fact I will now describe an example I perceive as an exploitation of  student fees to perpetuate the existence of the ASUC Auxiliary, which does more harm then good on this campus.  First you need to know that the money from commercial enterprises goes first to the auxiliary, and then the ASUC if there is any money left over. In the past two year, no money has been left over (this happened after an accounting change by the Auxiliary themselves). This year there are a verity of austerity measures the Auxiliary is imposing such as closing the Eshleman library (turning in into rental space), ending group vouchers for student space, and cutting staff positions in their own office. These austerity measures are necessary only to keep the Auxiliary alive as it continues to suck up ASUC student fees (the is the $58 per semester that all students pay to the ASUC equally apporx $1.7 million, this is the money that the ASUC dishes out to student groups). So the Auxiliary is already getting money from the businesses that are increasingly out of student control and none of this money is going to the ASUC.  The decision the stop giving out vouchers to student groups for room rentals will now see the ASUC financing student groups (with your student fees) to rent out rooms from the Auxiliary( The Auxiliary houses the Student Services division which rents out rooms). Basically we are paying the Auxiliary to take our money and provide us with our space!!! The result is the ASUC’s money is being diverted to the Auxiliary and can do less good for students. This vampiric cycle exposes the Auxiliary as an entity that is privatizing the ASUC just as the University is being privatized. Again the losers are the students because we are the piggy banks that have to pay for these exclusionary and limiting practices.

There is a long history of the ASUC’s leaking autonomy. Right now from my vantage point it seems to rest on two structural issues: 1) The high turnover rate of student officials is one of the greatest challenges to us waging an effective defense against the strong-arm of the Auxiliary. 2) Money: We DO need money and right now we aren’t the ones who control our own money.

This brings up the relevant questions of the Auxiliary’s purpose and whether a truly autonomous student government would be able to manage its own assests. I believe that we could, and this doesn’t mean students alone will do all the work. In the past we had full-time accountants and managers  that worked for the ASUC. But we still managed to go into debt.  Why? There’s a lot of reasons and I will get into them more in a different post, but suffice it to say the 1998 MOU and the recent BEARS initiative have charted very different courses for the ASUC. A course that doesn’t have student autonomy at the foreground.

So being behind the ASUC curtain I find myself frustrated by the hierarchical institution that is the ASUC, exemplified through the decisions that the Auxiliary makes on our behalf.

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Apply for Appointed Positions

August 26th, 2010 by Executive VP Nanxi Liu

The applications are finally here! We just released the applications for the following appointed positions:

• Finance Officer
• Attorney General
• Solicitor General

The applications are due September 5th at 6pm. Apply here: www.asuc.org/newsite/appointedofficialsform
Contact me at evp@asuc.org if you have any questions!

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Senate Training 2010-2011

August 15th, 2010 by Executive VP Nanxi Liu

This week, the senators are going through a week-long training program to prepare them for the year. The training starts Sunday, August 15th to Thursday evening, August 19th. You can join in on the senate training and see the various presentations-just hop in to Senate Chambers, First Floor, Eshleman Hall.

To see the  training agenda, click here:
http://asuc.org/newsite/assets/Uploads/NewFolder/Senate-Training-Agenda.pdf

To see the list of attendees for our Student Leader Lunch, click here:
http://asuc.org/newsite/assets/Uploads/NewFolder/ASUC-Student-Leader-Lunch.pdf

New activities for this year’s senate training:

• Open to the public
• Student Leader Lunch
• City Council representatives
• Lunch with Deans
• Many more!

Posted in General Announcements | 2 Comments »

Executive VP Op-Ed in the Daily Cal

August 11th, 2010 by Executive VP Nanxi Liu

I wrote an op-ed for the Daily Cal newspaper describing the EVP office’s goals for the upcoming year.
Check it out and let me know what you think!
http://www.dailycal.org/article/109956/accountability_and_efficiency_should_be_priorities

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Advocacy Agenda

August 5th, 2010 by Executive VP Nanxi Liu

In 1998, the UC Berkeley student body voted to create the ASUC Advocacy Agenda. The Advocacy Agenda consists of a series of student concerns to be advocated for by the ASUC Senate for the remainder of its term.The Advocacy Agenda will consist of a series of three to four issues that may include campus life, academic policy, community affairs, the UC System, and state and national student concerns. The entire student body is invited to submit Issue Briefs outlining their concerns and potential strategies for change. When the Senate meets at the beginning of the fall semester, they consolidate the Issue Briefs into three or four Advocacy Agenda Planks. For the remainder of the year, the Senate works to achieve the goals outlined in the Advocacy Agenda.

Submit what YOU want the ASUC to focus on this year:
www.ASUC.org/newsite/AAForm

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