As part of efforts to drum up support for a planned UC systemwide walkout on Sept. 24, more than 50 students and faculty demonstrated Thursday in front of Sproul Hall.

However, the hour-long demonstration was only the beginning of a weekend that is likely to see increased student involvement in the campaign. Student government officials from throughout the system will meet at UCLA Saturday for the monthly meeting of the UC Student Association Board of Directors.

In addition, a Facebook group supporting the walkout has already garnered more than 3,300 members, while an ASUC Senate bill expressing solidarity with the walkout may come to a floor vote next week.

According to Susan Li, external vice president of the UCLA Undergraduate Students Association, officials will consider how to form a unified response to state budget cuts and the university furlough plan and will be introducing a resolution in support of the walkout.

"If that passes, that basically means that all the students that UCSA represents ... will stand in solidarity with the faculty walkout," Li said in the e-mail.

ASUC External Affairs Vice President Dani Haber said she and other representatives from the ASUC, Graduate Assembly and the campus community will attend the meeting.

Li added that the severity of state cuts and their impact on campuses and student services has led student leaders to revive groups such as the Student Body President's Council.

"They will reconvene to discuss their purpose for a revival," she said in the e-mail. "They will be planning actions they're going to take as unified students from different UC campuses (in order) to combat these issues."

Campus officials have criticized the plan for a systemwide walkout as unproductive distraction from the everyday mission of the university.

"There is a widespread belief that collaborative efforts will be more effective in achieving our shared goals than actions that have the potential to negatively impact our students' experience," said campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof. "People will be held accountable for compliance with existing policies."

But for demonstrators on Sproul Plaza yesterday, compliance is not an option.

Gray Brechin, a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley in the geography department, said to passing students that the stakes were too high for student and the university alike to accept that state budget cuts could not be reversed.

"Why are you walking by? You students should stop," Brechin said. "If these cuts and the ones that Yudof says go through, this university will go down like the Titanic."

Tags: UCSA