Academic Affairs Vice President: Candidates Pitch Promises for Role of Students' Spokesperson

With earlier drop deadlines going into effect next year and minority enrollment at record lows, the five candidates for the ASUC academic affairs vice presidency are campaigning hard with promises to make the university more accessible and create a more student-friendly academic calendar.

Next year's academic affairs vice president will also act as the student body's representative to the Academic Senate and other university administrators and will be responsible for communicating academic policies and opportunities to students.

Jason Dixson

Student Action

Ever since he began working as a policy advocate intern in the ASUC Academic Affairs office freshman year, Student Action Senator Jason Dixson has been looking toward the academic affairs vice presidency.

The senator, who is also a member of Kappa Delta Rho fraternity and has served as a representative of the E-Berkeley student committee, is aiming to reimplement an eighth-week drop deadline, an additional dead day and an expanded grants program.

"Going to Cal, a world-class institution, we can improve this campus and get the education we deserve, because now, each year the funding that goes to students always runs out," he said.

Dixson also wants to up the ante on technology in the classroom by encouraging the use of PowerPoint presentations, Blackboard notes and Web-cast lectures.

"It seems that, right now, the university isn't thinking about technology," he said. "They're focusing on the small stuff. We need to expand on what's available to us, which is a lot of options."

Josie Hyman

Defend Affirmative Action Party

DAAP's candidate for academic affairs vice president, senior Josie Hyman, is not just hoping, but promising, to increase underrepresented minority enrollment on campus.

"I guarantee, we could increase the black and Latino population on campus, no doubt in my mind. We know how to make it a priority as a campus this year," she said.

Her plans include rethinking admissions standards, rehashing the academic calendar and creating more avenues for a student voice.

Hyman, an organizer for BAMN, stresses that the goal of education is not the grade, but the experience.

"The fight for diversity goes far beyond the immediate effect of

integrating the campus," she said. "It's a fight for intellectual livelihood, against the myth of meritocracy that says that students are only about grades and exams."

Andy Ratto

SQUELCH!

Without obscene, inflammatory rhetoric in the classroom, SQUELCH!'s Andy "Big Gay Homo" Ratto says students are missing out.

"It's a great disservice to students to have information presented in a politically correct manner; sexist stereotypes and ethnic slurs better help them grasp what they're looking at in class," he said.

He says he hopes to eliminate political correctness by establishing ASUC as a bastion of free speech through better-funded student publications, though Ratto is quick to clarify that The Daily Californian is the one exception.

"We need to create a sustainable infrastructure for publications to thrive, even those who do not hold popular viewpoints," Ratto said. "Groups should be reassured that SQUELCH! stands up for them so that no one can be condemned for free speech."

Ratto also wants to make the university's year-end class survey results accessible to students, which he says are being "swallowed up" by the university.

"Students should get all the information they can, so they know which are difficult classes, which have lectures that have nothing to do with the class," he said.

Brandon Smith

CalSERVE

Junior Brandon "B Safe" Smith says he can achieve tangible goals without just giving lip service to them. Smith, Black Recruitment and Retention Center associate director, wants to help students de-stress by improving the university's mental health services and faculty training with the health fee referendum.

"People are stressed," Smith said. "Berkeley promotes getting involved and working, but once students get here, the university doesn't help them out with academic issues. A lot of students don't realize they have too much on their plate."

Smith is also passionately pushing for more student representation in policy-making. With monthly administrator and student forums and an Academic Affairs lobby corps, Smith says he will counteract what he calls the "one track mind" of ASUC leaders.

"The ASUC is not the main governing body over everyone, it's just another organization working alongside other organizations," he said.

Matt Werner

Independent

For as long as he can remember, transfer student Matt "Red Hunting Hat" Werner's father was a high school principal. Now, the independent candidate hopes he can use lessons from his father's experience in his bid for the academic affairs vice presidency.

With a three-point plan to increase diversity, lower fees and revamp the academic calendar, Werner said he is ready to step in as "the students' advocate to the administration."

"I'm fighting to bring in more underrepresented minorities, to celebrate diversity (and) to help out students whose chances of getting into impacted courses are suffering with a two-week drop date," he said. "But mostly, we need to get more student feedback and promote general academic welfare on our campus."

Werner says he is confident that running with the former BEARS-United, a self-proclaimed "third party," would allow him more freedom than more established parties would.

"We've got a new, fresh approach because we're not entrenched in the partisan, two-party system," he said. "We don't have to answer to anyone."

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