Good evening everyone,
I hope you all had a great Welcome Week! I apologize for my delay in posting this update for the month of August. The month of September has been soo busy! If this is your first time reading my report, firstly, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to read this! Throughout my term as ASUCI President, I plan to continue updating you all on what ASUCI’s Office of the President plans to achieve, what we are currently working on, and what we have managed to achieve for students over the next several months.
This is a report on my office’s progress, campaigns, and events over the month of August.
- In early August, our partner association, the UC Student Association (UCSA), held their annual Student Organizing Summit, formerly known as UCSA Congress. Applications were made available for all students on our website through the ASUCI External Vice President’s Office. For those who did not attend, during this conference, students selected two advocacy campaigns that the organization would focus on for the next two years. The campaigns that were chosen were (1) Sustain Our Students (SOS), which will focus on food security, housing security, and sustainability efforts throughout the UC system, and (2) RE-IGNITE, which spins off from IGNITE (Invest in Graduation, Not Incarceration, Transform Education) and advocates for increased tuition funding and addressing police brutality. These two campaigns will be joining the ongoing #HowAreYou campaign for mental health.
During the conference, ASUCI’s External Vice President, Taylor Chanes, was elected to serve as the Undergraduate Committee Chair for UCSA. ASUCI also presented a bid for the annual UCSA Students of Color Conference, and I am excited to announce that UCI will officially host the Students of Color Conference on November 19-20, 2016! This will be the first time UCI has hosted the Students of Color Conference since 2006.
Taylor, the 2015-2016 ASUCI President Parshan Khosravi, and I also presented a workshop to over 40 student leaders on how to spearhead a successful vote campaign on their respective campuses. Our presentation and data stemmed directly from our very own ASUCI 60 By 16 campaign and focused on garnering a critical understanding of campus events and locations, as well as creating strong partnerships with administration and departments. For those who would like to see how we have been coordinating our voter registration efforts in the interest that they would like to begin a campaign of their own, please email me and I will send you the presentation! - ASUCI’s 60 by 16 Commission, our official voter registration campaign, has already begun registering students and planning events for the year. ASUCI is partnering up with the Korean Resource Center, League of Women Voters, UC-AFT, UCI’s Office of Community and Government Relations, the OC Registrar of Voters, and various student political organizations on campus to reach our ultimate goal of approximately 17,000 registered students. We’ve also recruited nearly 50 student volunteers who signed up through our application! These fellow UCI students will receive voter registration training, t-shirts, ID badges, and more in return for their service. Through important collaborative work with Executive Director Lisa Cornish and Associate Director Emily Zaman of Student Conduct & Governance, ASUCI and Student Housing have officially signed a Memorandum of Understanding that will crucially, ultimately help ASUCI outreach to as many students as possible. This year, our ASUCI 60 by 16 Campaign student team plan to canvass door-to-door at the student housing locations on campus to register or invite students to participate in the political process, unless the students choose to opt-out. If you would like to view the MOU, please email me.
ASUCI is also partnering up with the Irvine Chamber to co-host the 2016 Irvine Candidates Forum, which will take place on Thursday, September 29 from 5:30pm – 8:00pm in Pacific Ballroom D. The event is free and open to the public. Candidates running for City Council and Mayor have been invited to speak about their goals and visions for the city. I highly encourage all of you to attend to ask our potential city council members how they plan to help and work with students at UCI. - Last year, ASUCI’s Office of the President launched a letter and survey campaign called, “Dear Admin!” in which we asked for undergraduate student input and concerns about various departments on campus. We have finalized our results from the surveys, which you may find below. Most of the students’ input focused on 6 departments: Transportation and Distribution Services, Financial Aid and Scholarships, Dining and Hospitality, the Hill Bookstore, and Housing. We plan to forward these results in greater detail to the respective departments.
- Toward the end of the month, the ASUCI Executive Cabinet met with Lieutenant Frisbee from the UC Irvine Police Department to discuss several topics regarding UCIPD’s plans and initiatives for the 2016-2017 school year. We learned that UCIPD will begin instilling three new programs, which include: (1) The Chief’s Advisory Council, which will consist of students and convene during Fall Quarter, (2) Community Police Academy, which will begin in Spring 2017, and (3) a new Volunteer Program.
- On September 1st, we held the Food Security Student Leadership Meeting with Ruben Canedo, who coordinates the Food Access & Security Subcommittee for UCOP’s Global Food Initiative. The UC Global Food Initiative involves all 10 UC campuses, UC’s Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, with guidance from a system-wide working group appointed by President Napolitano and the chancellors. More than 20 subcommittees and multicampus working groups are drawing on the efforts of faculty, students and staff, as well as engagement with the community.
During this meeting, members from the Student Council on Food Security and members of ASUCI’s executive cabinet met to discuss the steps moving forward from the Food Pantry referendum that was approved this last Spring during our elections. We are in the process of finalizing a student accountability group that will oversee what the funding from this referendum will be utilized for. I hope to update you all on this again within the next couple months. - And finally, I met with Briandy Walden, the Associate Director of OIT, AND the creator of our beloved EEE website. Briandy is also the chair of the Learning Management Systems (LMS) Advisory Group at UCI. EEE was created in 1995 out of a collaborative effort from OIT, the UCI Libraries, WebReg, and the Department of Undergraduate Education (DUE). It was the first LMS to be created before all of the other vendors (for example, Blackboard, Canvas, etc.). Briandy says that during its creation, EEE was developed using 1999 code, which creates a lot of problems and misses the ability to create new updates. For example, some of the problems Briandy mentioned were: poor communication with publishers, lack of accessibility, and it is currently not mobile-friendly.
Over time, new searches for a more updated, accessible program led to OIT finding Canvas. Many of us have already utilized Canvas for some of our classes. Last year was UCI’s pilot year in testing out Canvas, and according to OIT, due to positive feedback, UCI is now in its transition phase (several years) to completely adopt Canvas as the core LMS. OIT will still continue to create new additions similar to the services that were available on EEE around Canvas, such as the evaluation system for professors and T.A.s.
The LMS Advisory Group exists to foster transparent conversation between several departments on campus, OIT, and students. LMS plans to release applications for two student volunteer positions to serve as student representatives on the LMS Advisory Group. The two selected students will share feedback, concerns, and suggestions about EEE and Canvas. These applications should be released early in the school year. I highly suggest you apply!
There are many other projects that ASUCI’s Office of the President will be working on in September and I welcome any feedback and questions you may have. Beginning Fall Quarter, these monthly reports will be supplemented by bi-weekly videos created by ASUCI’s Media & Communications team! I look forward to hearing your feedback and reporting our progress in the next monthly report, which will include our September projects. Coming shortly!
Sincerely,
Tracy La
ASUCI President
2016-2017
Click here to view the dear-admin-2015-2016-results.
