CalSERVE Senator Sevly Snguon authored the bill, SB 17, in response to a Sept. 17 printing of an advertisement in the Daily Cal for Dr. Chase Lay, a Bay Area cosmetic surgeon, that emphasized Lay’s expertise in “Asian eyelid surgery” and “Asian facial plastics.” The ad also included photos of Asian women who had undergone eyelid surgery.

The bill was originally introduced Sept. 25 but was tabled until this week. If it is passed, the Daily Cal will be urged to publish an apology for the advertisement online and in print. ASUC President DeeJay Pepito would also be asked to create a task force to investigate campus climate for students of Asian or Pacific Islander descent.

Snguon said at the senate’s external committee meeting Monday that the advertisement was “defining forms of beauty.”

UC Berkeley is a “community where we should feel comfortable,” he said. ”We’re not here to define what people should look like.”

At the committee meeting, Sarah Burns, the Daily Cal’s editor in chief and president, explained the newspaper’s process of screening potentially controversial advertisements. The Daily Cal’s Senior Editorial Board can review such advertisements prior to publication and determine whether to publish them. Although this particular advertisement was not reviewed before publication, the board decided not to let it print again after receiving criticism from the campus community, Burns said.

“We decided to pull the ad because we were cutting off a portion of our readership,” she said.

Lay said he understood why it was pulled but that he did not intend to offend the community.

“I just thought I’d put my expertise on display in areas where the demand was high,” Lay said in an interview shortly after the bill’s initial introduction. “It was not a chance to take advantage of a demographic or patients that are insecure about themselves.”

The external committee approved SB 17 unanimously Monday, allowing the bill to be considered by the entire senate Wednesday.

Jennie Yoon is the lead student government reporter. Contact her at jyoon@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @jennieyoon_.

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Michael Gethers/File

The ASUC Senate unanimously passed a bill last Wednesday in opposition to the Food and Drug Administration’s lifetime ban on blood donations from gay men.

The bill, SB 14, garnered full support from senators. Additionally, 16 out of the senate’s 20 members co-sponsored the bill.

Government officials on the national level, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and a number of openly gay and lesbian members of Congress, have also denounced the ban, calling it discriminatory and outdated.

Authored by CalSERVE Senator Caitlin Quinn, the bill calls on ASUC President Deejay Pepito to write a letter to President Barack Obama as well as to Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Barbara Lee expressing the ASUC’s concerns about the FDA’s lifetime ban on blood donations from men who have sex with men.

“After talking to some community members, I figured as the queer-endorsed Senator I should take a stand against this institutionalized form of homophobia,” Quinn said in an email.

The FDA ban was established in 1983 due to growing concerns surrounding the HIV/AIDS epidemic that swept the nation and particularly affected the American gay community. The ban remains in place despite 30 years of technological and medical advancement that allows HIV testing, said UC Berkeley senior Michelle Carney, who co-sponsored the bill.

According to a study by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, lifting the ban would allow more than 2.6 million eligible men to make blood donations, providing 219,200 pints of donated blood.

Carney said 24 percent of blood donations for the American Red Cross in the Bay Area comes from high school and college students, making this issue particularly important for members of the UC Berkeley community.

“From organizing the blood drive ourselves (on campus), we as students were tired of seeing our community feel helpless and hopeless,” Carney said.

According to the FDA website, the ban on such donations is “not based on any judgment concerning the donor’s sexual orientation.”

In a statement released in June, however, the AABB (formerly known as the American Association of Blood Banks), America’s Blood Centers and the Red Cross said they believed that the FDA’s ban “should be modified and donor referral criteria should be made comparable with criteria for other behaviors that pose an increased risk for transmission of transfusion-transmitted infections.”

“I definitely think it’s a really good start,” said UC Berkeley freshman Anthony Barros, who works in Quinn’s office and was involved in writing the bill. “Bringing visibility and awareness of this issue to Cal will be the best first steps to make change on this issue.”

Jennie Yoon is the lead student government reporter. Contact her at jyoon@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @jennieyoon_.

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Kore Chan/File

An ASUC Senate bill introduced Wednesday criticizes the UC Berkeley administration’s decision to hold the majority of classes on Oct. 1 after an explosion left most of campus without power the previous evening.

The bill, authored by Independent Campaign for Common Sense Senator Solomon Nwoche, calls on administrators to promptly inform students of class cancellations after emergencies. The bill will be discussed at an ASUC Senate committee meeting Monday night.

After an explosion near California Hall on the evening of Sept. 30, electrical crews worked through the night to bring power back to campus buildings.

At 5:30 a.m. on Oct. 1, campus officials notified students, faculty and staff that power had been restored to all but 11 buildings, including Dwinelle Hall.

Classes took place as normal in all buildings except those 11, to the dismay of many students who felt they had been inconvenienced by power outages in several campus residence halls the night before.

“Even best-case scenario, let’s say your assignment didn’t have any technology component — you were stuck reading in the dark,” Nwoche said regarding students living in the residence halls.

The bill, SB 27, lambastes the campus’s choice to hold most classes as usual, calling it an “irrational decision,” but also lauds Chancellor Nicholas Dirks’ acknowledgement that there was a lack of communication from campus administrators after the incident.

The bill’s text suggests implementing a campus policy whereby administrators inform students of class cancellations before 1 a.m. after an emergency. Nwoche said he would like the bill’s language to be amended to request that the announcement come within a seven- to eight-hour window after an emergency, with classes being automatically canceled after that time.

Claire Holmes, associate vice chancellor for public affairs, explained the challenges of pinning down parameters for campus emergency response.

“It is hard to dictate emergency situations because they are unpredictable and constantly evolving,” she said. Holmes does, however, agree that students and staff ought to be given as much notice as possible of class cancellations.

Both Student Action Senator Sahil Pandya and SQUELCH! Senator Grant Fineman support having a discussion about the campus’s response after the incident, but said they remain uncertain about the text of the bill itself.

“The bill comes from a very good place,” Fineman said. “It’s important in a big disaster to get information out to students quickly and efficiently, but I do understand that the administration was dealing with a lot of moving parts.”

CalSERVE Senator Briana Mullen said she would not vote for the current iteration of the bill.

“We need to be smart about when we use bills,” Mullen said. “If we don’t make policy in tandem with administrators, they are not going to respect it.”

ASUC President DeeJay Pepito said she plans to work with students and administrators to review campus outreach during emergency situations.

“The process is ongoing and continuously improving,” Pepito said in a text message forwarded from her chief of staff, Austin Pritzkat.

Contact Kimberly Veklerov at kveklerov@dailycal.org.

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The search committee is made up of 11 student, faculty and staff representatives, including ASUC President DeeJay Pepito, and is chaired by Anne De Luca, associate vice chancellor for admissions and enrollment.

The student forum drew about 20 students who voiced the importance of having a dean of students who is accessible and transparent, according to Austin Pritzkat, Pepito’s chief of staff.

Students said they wanted a dean who would actively participate with students and implement an open-door policy by holding informal meetings with students.

After a November 2011 Occupy Cal protest, Poullard agreed with former UC Berkeley chancellor Robert Birgeneau that students linking arms to prevent police from entering an encampment was not “nonviolent civil disobedience.” In response, students at the meeting expressed concerns that the new dean must understand the rationale behind student protest.

Graduate Assembly President Max Gee, who also sits on the committee, said that he and Pepito will attend all search committee meetings to “make sure the priorities of the undergraduate students are met.”

“The search has just begun, and students will have a voice along every step of the way,” Gee said.

Other search committee members were also present at the student forum. David Robinson, associate campus counsel and a member of the committee, said the feedback about what the students at the forum said they wanted and what was discussed at the committee meetings were very similar.

“The dean of students needs to be someone who has communication skills and an ability to really listen to what the student priorities are,” Robinson said. “The dean needs to engage with students and student leadership as partners.”

According to De Luca, the committee discussed looking for someone who understands the unique dynamics of a public institution like UC Berkeley and who is committed to the type of diversity found in the campus community.

Currently, David Surratt is serving as the interim dean of students and will continue to do so until a replacement is found.

The committee, which has only had one meeting so far on Sept. 25, is in the early stages of finding that replacement. De Luca said there is no deadline and hopes to have finalists on campus to meet with different stakeholder groups by early February.

“Our next step is to review the draft of the position profile, and once it is approved, to begin to advertise the position,” De Luca said. “The committee will then focus on sharing the news of the position and encouraging applications from student affairs professionals nationwide.”

Jane Nho covers student government. Contact her at jnho@dailycal.org.

Correction(s):
A previous version of this article incorrectly identified Anne DeLuca as associate vice chancellor for admissions and enrollment and acting director of undergraduate admissions. In fact, DeLuca is only the associate vice chancellor for admissions and enrollment.

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The bill, written and co-sponsored by CalSERVE Senator Caitlin Quinn, opposes the construction of the extension of the current Keystone pipeline that could harm the environment and the economy due to the harmful nature of extracting and refining crude oil from tar sands.

The bill, which passed by an 18-1 margin, instructs ASUC President DeeJay Pepito to write a letter to President Barack Obama formally expressing the ASUC’s position on the Keystone XL pipeline.

The pipeline would be harmful to the “environment, agriculture, native peoples, farmers in the Midwest, the health and safety of Americans, unionized workers, and the American economy,” the bill states.

The bill addresses concerns that pipeline construction will harm the environment without helping economies. It states that the Keystone XL pipeline would create only 35 permanent jobs and that 85 to 90 percent of the temporary jobs created by pipeline construction would not go toward job creation in local communities.

The Amalgamated Transit Union and the Transport Workers Union have also expressed opposition to the construction of the pipeline, according to the bill. The workers’ unions stated that rather than investing in the pipeline, jobs should go toward energy conservation research and public transportation improvement.

Jennie Yoon is the lead student government reporter. Contact her at jyoon@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @jennieyoon_.

Correction(s):
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the ASUC Senate passed SB 11 unanimously. In fact, the bill passed on a vote of 18-1.

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UC Berkeley Chief Financial Officer Erin Gore is stepping down at the end of the month after four years of helping oversee new campus financial initiatives to aid students.

Gore’s major projects during her time on campus included helping to establish the first comprehensive campuswide budget plan and overseeing the finances of the Lower Sproul Redevelopment Project.

In August, Gore accepted an executive vice president position at Wells Fargo, where she will lead its commercial-banking education and nonprofit team. Although she loved working as the campus’s CFO, Gore said the Wells Fargo offer was one she could not refuse.

“It was the best job in the world, so it’s really hard,” Gore said of the CFO position. “It’s definitely a 24-hour job, and I aspire to have more of a work-life balance.”

When she took over the CFO position in 2009, Gore was surprised to realize she had inherited a budget system that was practically nonexistent, she said. In response, she helped create the first-ever all-funds budget plan in 2012 and 2013 for the campus as part of Operational Excellence. The second budget came out earlier in September.

Gore brought in Cathy Lloyd, the executive director of strategic project management, from Harvard to implement a tool that would help with the school’s budget.

“(The budget) has been fantastic, transformational to Cal,” Lloyd said. “(Gore’s) mission, in her mind, was to have Berkeley be the leader of this revolution that needs to happen in order for higher education to survive financially.”

Gore also was largely responsible for the financial side of the Lower Sproul Redevelopment Project and said that, even though she is leaving, nothing will stop her from being at the reopening.

According to Pamela Brown, executive director of the campus Office of Planning and Analysis, Gore has always been devoted to looking for ways to improve the student experience.

Brown’s favorite story about Gore centers on a time after the implementation of the Middle Class Access Plan, which offers financial aid programs to help middle-class families. Brown recalls Gore leaving the elevator and saying, “Woo-hoo! We changed the world today.”

ASUC President DeeJay Pepito, who worked closely with Gore over the past few years, credits Gore with being one of the primary reasons the ASUC has been successful in many campaign initiatives.

“The next CFO is going to have very big shoes to fill,” Pepito said.

Although she has already accepted the new position, Gore decided to delay leaving to oversee a recent campus financial audit and to ensure continuity.

A search committee has been put together, and she said it was important to her that an undergraduate will be sitting on the committee. In the interim, Delphine Regalia will serve as controller and will report to the vice chancellor of administration and finance, and Laurent Heller will act as interim CFO.

Shannon Carroll covers academics and administration. Contact her at scarroll@dailycal.org.

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Jan Flatley-Feldman/File

As the first CalSERVE ASUC president in four years, DeeJay Pepito embarks on a new year of challenges and opportunities. Her goals in office include prioritizing campus safety and addressing sexual assault policies. She also hopes to improve the quality of student services and make sure that the administration is accountable to the student body. But who is DeeJay Pepito? The Daily Cal sat down with Pepito to find out more about who she is and who she will be as ASUC president.

The Daily Californian: How has the experience of being ASUC president been so far?

DeeJay Pepito: All summer, I’ve been hard at work to make sure I fully transition into this role and get acclimated to the new responsibilities and opportunities I have. I decided to not take summer school and stay in Berkeley to focus on the ASUC and what my vision and goals are. It ended up being a full-time, 9-5 job for me, and I spent a lot of time doing my introductory and transition standing meetings with different administrators so that I can help the ASUC and student body navigate our university better and understand the different conversations that departments all over campus are having. Whether students are around or not in the summertime, the university doesn’t stop working, so I really tried hard to make sure I was at the table for different campus decisions happening.

DC: What are your goals for the year?

DP: The ASUC Office of the President will be focusing on an array of issues. We’ll definitely be fully implementing the platforms I ran on, and those are well on their way in the planning process. My main goal will be changing the culture and conversation of sexual assault on campus. As a whole, the ASUC Office of the President this year will be an ASUC executive office that this student body has never seen before, and I give you my word on that.

DC: What are some of the biggest challenges you think you’ll face this year?

DP: Everyone has different priorities and concerns. Being ASUC president also gives me the privilege to participate in conversations and decisions that other students don’t. I think it’s very difficult to understand the scope of what the entire ASUC is doing in orchestra, but specifically, it’s very hard to see what the ASUC president is doing, because much of what I do is hard to make visible to the larger campus. The biggest challenge will be reassuring the student body that concerns are being heard and work is being done to really address them.

DC: Who do you call when you are most stressed out?

DP: I have a small and close circle of friends and family that understand what I’m going through, and so they know to just listen and let me vent if I’m stressed, no matter how ridiculous it may seem. Sometimes, I just need to be validated for my feelings, just like everyone else. A lot of the time, I call my partner or my mom and I ask them to just talk to me about anything so that I can take a step back and just listen to something completely unrelated to Cal and the ASUC; that also helps me to calm down and unwind.

DC: What do you like to do in your free time?

DP: Catch my breath. This role is really fast-paced, so if I ever get a free moment, which is rare, then usually I need that time to process and regroup.

DC: Who inspires you?

DP: Women, especially women of color, who are in leadership positions and work in male-dominated careers, offices and staffs. It takes a great deal of resilience to be a woman of color and be successful.

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After eight years as UC Berkeley’s dean of students, Jonathan Poullard will step down Sept. 13.

Poullard has expressed a desire to relocate to the East Coast to be closer to his family, said Felicia Lee, chief of staff for Harry Le Grande, vice chancellor for student affairs. Poullard will be ending his career at UC Berkeley as a voice for the student body.

“It was not a surprise regarding the reason but it is always a jolt when any staff member leaves our Cal community,” Lee said in an email.

Anne De Luca, associate vice chancellor for admissions and enrollment and acting director of undergraduate admissions, will lead a search committee tasked with finding a replacement for Poullard. Details about the committee’s members have yet to be released, but it will include representatives of faculty and staff members as well as student groups.

According to Austin Pritzkat, ASUC President DeeJay Pepito’s chief of staff, student representation on the search committee will include Pepito and Graduate Assembly President Max Gee. Pepito hopes to have students participate in the selection process, potentially through open forums, Pritzkat said.

As dean of students, Poullard oversaw many student-related groups and activities as well as emergency and crisis situations affecting students. The Occupy Cal movement was one of the more controversial events during Poullard’s tenure.

After the November 2011 protest in which police used batons against demonstrators trying to set up an encampment on Sproul Plaza, Poullard agreed with Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s statement that linking arms to prevent police from approaching the encampment was not “nonviolent civil disobedience,” according to Connor Landgraf, ASUC president during the 2012-13 academic year.

Landgraf acknowledged that student leaders and Poullard did not “always see eye to eye” on the campus response to protests.

“However, he was always very positive and was very vocal when it came to protecting students’ rights,” Landgraf said.

Other student leaders agreed that Poullard may be remembered for being a strong advocate for students.

“When a crisis erupted, whether it was the Berkeley College Republicans’ bake sale or the Israel divestment bill that rocked campus last spring, Dean Poullard never shied from the difficult issues,” said Joey Freeman, ASUC external affairs vice president for 2011-12. “He was a bridge-builder who facilitated meetings between students on both sides of any given issue.”

One of the programs that Poullard began on campus was the Student Liaison for Dean of Students, a mentoring program for undergraduate students wishing to explore the field of student affairs.

“It allows students to work with him directly for a year,” said Elizabeth Rodriguez, executive assistant to the dean of students. “Many of the students who participate in the program go on to do a master’s program.”

Billy Curtis, former assistant dean of students and current executive director of the campus’s Multicultural, Sexuality and Gender Centers, participated in the search committee that hired Poullard in 2006 and continued to work with him until 2009.

“It’s such a loss to the campus,” Curtis said of Poullard’s departure. “He brought a sense of professionalism to the student affairs department. He was instrumental in taking the office of student life to the level that it is now.”

Jose Hernandez covers campus life. Contact him at jhernandez@dailycal.org.

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#1: Janet Napolitano

Janet Napolitano was appointed as the 20th president of the UC system in July. The Office of the President manages the fiscal and business operations of the UC system while supporting the individual campus missions. Napolitano will be the first female president in the university’s 145-year history. She will take over as president in late September.

#2: Nicholas Dirks

Nicholas Dirks is the 10th chancellor of UC Berkeley. The chancellor sets the priorities for the university. He recently served as the executive vice president and dean of the faculty of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University and was approved by the UC Board of Regents in November.

#3: Margo Bennett

Margo Bennett is the chief of UCPD. The police department oversees the central campus as well as University Village in Albany and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Bennett has more than 25 years of law enforcement experience and previously served as a UCPD captain.

#4: DeeJay Pepito

DeeJay Pepito is the current ASUC president at UC Berkeley. Elected in the campus’s general elections in April, Pepito ran with the CalSERVE party for the top student government position. As president, Pepito is the chief representative of the ASUC, and her duties include monitoring the well-being of the entire student body community.

#5: Robert Reich

Robert Reich is a professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy. Also a former U.S. Secretary of Labor, Reich teaches one of the most popular classes at UC Berkeley, which is entitled “Wealth and Poverty” and is open to undergraduate students. He also served on President Obama’s transition advisory board prior to his inauguration.

#6: Harry Le Grande

Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Harry Le Grande handles the branches of the university’s administration that specifically pertain to prospective and current students and handles the admissions process. Among other duties, the student affairs office encompasses undergraduate admissions, the registrar’s office, financial aid, housing, dining and career services.

#7: Tom Bates

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates was elected to a fourth mayoral term in November. He has served as mayor for more than 10 years. He served 20 years as a member of the California State Assembly. He is married to former Berkeley mayor and current State Sen. Loni Hancock.

#8: Zachary RunningWolf

Local activist Zachary RunningWolf can often be seen wandering around town or hanging out on Sproul Plaza. RunningWolf, a former Berkeley mayoral candidate, is a well-known figure for participating in several Berkeley tree-sits. He famously participated in a tree-sit opposing the planned removal of a grove of oak trees near Memorial Stadium in 2007.

#9: Yoshua

David Temple, known as “Yoshua” due to the lettering on his shirt,  is a local figure in the Berkeley community. Often holding a Bible and flyers, he will tell students walking through Sproul Plaza about the end of the world.

#10: Hate Man

Former New York Times reporter Mark Hawthorne lives in People’s Park and calls himself “Hate Man.” He is known for encouraging people to be honest about their negative feelings.

Contact Megan Messerly and Chloe Hunt at newsdesk@dailycal.org. Illustrations by Amanda Burke.

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SB 158, originally introduced as an alternative to divestment bill SB 160, was authored by SQUELCH! Senator Jason Bellet and Student Action Senator Rafi Lurie. The authors themselves requested that the bill be tabled indefinitely saying that to that the bill’s language had been too watered down in the ASUC’s Committee on University & External Affairs.

“The authors of this bill submitted the bill with certain language and the bill was edited down and edited down,” Lurie said during the meeting. “The language we (originally) put in there is what our community wanted to see. Table this instead of passing some half bill.”

The bill would encourage the ASUC to take financial and political action to help end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, recognizing harm inflicted on both side and affirming the right for a Jewish State. The bill would also indicate that the ASUC supports a two state solution.

Lurie maintained that the discussion surrounding the bill would not be laid to rest but instead addressed in a different bill.

Other senators, including CalSERVE Senator Nolan Pack and Student Action Senator George Kadifa, also addressed issues with the bill’s wording.

“I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to passing the bill as it came out of committee, but I am definitely opposed to many of the changes the authors are proposing,” Pack said in an email. “Specifically, the authors are packing the bill with loaded language that implicitly endorses disagreeable policies that may not be obvious at face value.”

Independent Senator Sadia Saifuddin said that that she felt portions of the bill were exclusionary to non-Jewish people living in Israel.

“I was not in support of some of the proposed amendments by the senators because the language was exclusionary by its nature and extraordinarily vague,” Saifuddin said in an email.

Bellet addressed concerns about the language of the bill saying that the bill is grounded in international law and correct in referring to Israel as a Jewish state.

“Jewish people and Palestinian people have a right to self determination,” Bellet said during discussion. “This bill supports Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.”

CalSERVE senator and ASUC President-elect DeeJay Pepito said she voted against tabling the bill because she felt the discussion while worthwhile, was too short.

“To be clear, Senators who voted yes on SB 160 were more than willing to vote yes on SB 158 also,” Pepito said in an email. “We just wanted a conversation on amendments and language use within its text. I am troubled tonight knowing that the conversation on 158 was so short. This bill deserved time on the Senate floor — the community supporting SB 158 deserved time on the Senate floor.”

Ally Rondoni is the lead student government reporter. Contact her at arondoni@dailycal.org.

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