Committee Makes Final Recommendation for Newest Student Regent

Student Union Assembly (SUA) external vice chair Victor Sanchez returned Wednesday night from Santa Monica, where he and other UC systemwide SUA members nominated the new student regent candidate for election.  

Sanchez was serving as the proxy voter for University of California Student Assembly President Lucero Chavez, a second-year student at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law.

The nominee’s name will be released by the end of the week.  UC President Mark Yudof will be the first to be informed, followed by Board of Regents chair Richard Blum. 

The entire Board of Regents will vote to approve the nominee July 1. Although the board is at liberty to elect a candidate other than the one nominated by the student committee, no student regent in recent history has been appointed without the support of the committee. 

 

Faculty Suspect Dean Kamienieki of Neglecting Shared Governance

After an Academic Senate meeting Wednesday, SUA officers elected to take a stance on the current controversy over proposed cuts to the community studies program. This decision was reached in response to growing faculty concern that Division of Social Sciences dean Sheldon Kamienieki violated shared governance when he executed plans for next year’s budget cuts. 

Shared governance requires that the Academic Senate be consulted in decisions that affect a program or department to the extent that it hinders the integrity of the program as it currently exists.  

SUA commissioner of academic affairs Matt Palm said SUA will be investigating these concerns over the next few weeks. 

“We want to make sure the policy is followed and if that means the process is longer, that’s OK,” Palm said. “[The decisions should] have complete backing of the Academic Senate.”

 

Read the May 28 issue of City on a Hill Press for in-depth coverage of the student regent nomination and SUA’s inquiry into Dean Kamieniecki’s actions.