A memorandum of understanding that will increase funding for the campus' temporary multicultural center was signed between UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and ASUC President Van Nguyen yesterday.

The agreement states that the current center in Heller Lounge will receive more than $100,000 in funding from the campus over the next three years and will expand to include the Open Computing Facility in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union building.

The memorandum also establishes a 26-person advisory board with students from dozens of the campus' cultural groups and appoints a full-time staff representative to help oversee the center's operations.

The current center is the second step in a three-phase plan to build a permanent facility, and while ASUC officials acknowledge that the agreement is critical, they emphasized that much more progress still needs to be made.

"There is definitely a lot of work that still needs to be done, but I think this is a good compromise between the students and the university," Nguyen said.

Ultimately, student and campus officials hope to create a renovated center on Lower Sproul Plaza to serve the student population's needs.

"I truly hope that this will be part of the Lower Sproul development, which I will personally make a very high priority, and I hope that students will support it when the referendum comes out," Birgeneau said.

The multicultural center was first created in 1999 after a coalition of student groups led a series of demonstrations and hunger strikes protesting budget cuts to the campus' ethnic studies department.

In 2004, the ASUC provided space in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union for the campus' underrepresented communities.

Both campus officials and ASUC administrators said that yesterday's agreement will bring the campus closer to its goal of creating an intellectual hub where different student groups can learn from one another.

"(Yesterday's) signing is a powerful, historic moment and an important step in the struggle to have students' concerns prioritized by the university," said Taylor Allbright, ASUC executive vice president.

Tags: MULTICULTURAL CENTER, MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING, CHANCELLOR ROBERT BIRGENEAU, ASUC