UCLA Faculty Association: Time to Think Again About a Faculty Regent? Voting in the Room Where It Happens

Back in the day (1970s) when the student regent position was created, the Academic Senate decided against having a faculty regent even though that was a possibility. So we now have a voting student regent, alumni regent, but only a faculty representative (nonvoting).

We also have a recent history of the Regents not paying a lot of attention to faculty views.*

Students may be on the verge of getting a second vote at the Regents. If that were to happen, the time would be ripe for reconsideration of that 1970s decision that nixed a voting faculty regent.**

From the Bruin:

A proposed constitutional amendment would allow a second student member on the University of California Board of Regents to vote in board decisions, strengthening the presence of students’ voices and advocacy efforts, UC students said.

The UC Board of Regents currently has two positions for students – the student regent and student regent-designate. A student must serve as the regent-designate for a year before they earn voting power as the student regent. Under California Senate Constitutional Amendment 5, voting power would be extended to the student regent-designate.

State Sen. Steve Glazer worked with the UC Student Association, Student Regent Jamaal Muwwakkil and Student Regent-designate Alexis Atsilvsgi Zaragoza to draft SCA 5, said Joshua Lewis, government relations chair of UCSA and a third-year political science and public policy student at UC Berkeley. Glazer introduced the amendment April 16.

Many regent committee meetings happen simultaneously, but the student regent can only vote in one meeting at a time, said Muwwakkil, a linguistics doctoral student at UC Santa Barbara. He added that although the regent-designate can be present and vocal in the other meetings, their inability to vote is an unnecessary restriction that limits the scope of student influence.

Zaragoza, a fifth-year geography and political science transfer student at UC Berkeley, said the designate position is essentially the same role as the regent position without the voting power.

“Why not have more representation?” Zaragoza said. “That person’s already here. They’re already doing the work. They’re already speaking up. You might as well just let them say ‘aye’ and go on about it.”

Muwwakkil added that the student voice becomes more powerful on the Board of Regents because of the ability to affect structural change.

“We get to be in the room where it happens,” Muwwakkil said...

Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2021/04/28/proposed-amendment-would-expand-student-influence-on-uc-board-of-regents