Platform

PEP's Platform consists of six major issue areas:

1. Preserving a Quality Educational Experience
The prestige and quality of a UCLA education should never be in jeopardy, even in a harsh financial crisis. PEP aims to curtail threats to the quality of UCLA by:

• Fighting for the prioritization of state and federal funds for UCLA and all of California's public universities. 
• Standing up to administrators who have raised student fees only to allocate them to wasteful capital projects (the Pauley Pavilion renovation, among others). Enough is enough! 
• Demanding transparency in the decision-making of UCLA and UC administrators. We believe there is money in the UC system to ensure that all students receive a quality education; our money needs to be accounted for. 
• Ensuring that diversity and student support initiatives are not sacrificed in the name of budget cuts. 

2. UCLA Should Be Affordable and Accessible to All People

Students should be protected from unforeseen fee hikes. Annual fee hikes, such as those proposed by the UC Commission on the Future, hurt all students and are disproportionately burdensome to low-income students, middle-class students, and undocumented students. PEP will fight against fee hikes and their effects by:

• Advocating against UC President Yudof's and the UC Regents' recent recommendation to increase professional programs to the fee levels of private peer institutions.  
• Fighting for better economic protections in terms of need-based grants and financial aid programs to support the students most affected by the fee increases. 
• Proposing diversity initiatives that ensure UCLA and the UC system are still affordable for students of color, undocumented students, low-income students, and other non-traditional graduate students.
• Protecting graduate student TAships, instructor positions, GSRships, and fellowship funding.

3. Ensure all Academic Programs are Funded Equitably 

The university should fund all programs equitably without a bias toward or against any given discipline. There is an attack on the Humanities and foreign languages in particular, programs that are essential to graduate education and provide an academically enriching atmosphere. UCLA has a mandate to provide comprehensive teaching and research to the public; PEP will ensure that the administration fulfills this mandate by:

• Ensuring that all research institutes and labs have adequate resources for conducting quality research and fulfilling safety standards. 
• Advocating for expanded library service hours so that all students have the resources necessary to fulfill the requirements of their programs and research studies. 
• Fighting for transparency in the reporting of budget cut implications across all disciplines and departments. Depending on the outcomes of this data, this may mean holding the administration accountable for inequities in budget allocations.
• Strengthening graduate student representation on executive committees and task forces. 
• Working to make sure that online classes do not replace actual classes.

4. Expanding Quality Student Healthcare

Currently, UCOP is leading an initiative to combine UC-wide graduate health insurance under a new program, GSHIP. GSA's current president has made it difficult to ensure all UCLA grad/professional students have access to affordable, comprehensive, and quality healthcare through careless decisions that leave UCLA GSA without a vote on the statewide committee. PEP wants to advocate for the well-being of UCLA grad/professional students by:

• Working with UC leaders, students, and administrators to identify the best student health plan for UCLA.
• Expanding student health insurance to the dependents and family members of UCLA graduate/professional students. 
• Keeping UCLA GSA at the table by regaining our rightful committee vote and engaging in a collegial manner with our UC peers. 

5. Ensuring Campus Safety

Because of the recent increases in sexual assaults and the constant thefts on university grounds, PEP will address the threats to a safe campus community by:

• Actively advocate against hate crimes and bias-related incidents on campus. Work with the rest of the UC system in a unified front against hate. Create and enhance hate crime prevention educational programs for students and faculty.
• Educating grad/professional students through an innovative new campaign about existing safety programs such as the Evening Van and Escort service.
• Working closely with UCPD to ensure the safety of all students and workers at UCLA, despite diverse schedules and responsibilities. 
• Partnering with UCPD to ensure all student mobilization efforts, demonstrations, and advocacy efforts are peaceful. Represent students' rights when UCPD oversteps their authority and uses excessive force against students. 

6. Recruiting and Retaining Graduate Students and Faculty of Color
As California's demographics continue to shift dramatically, the future economy will depend heavily on the state's ability to educate and incorporate a younger generation of Californians of color. As a public university, UCLA is mandated to educate and provide research opportunities for these growing ethnic communities. PEP will represent graduate student voices and expand diversity initiatives by:

• Maintaining all outreach programs and support services for students of color (current and future) through a strong collaboration with UCLA Graduate Division.
• Ensuring that diversity initiatives do not get cut out by administrators and departments due to fiscal constraints-diversity is important for UCLA.
• Supporting the hiring of faculty of color through grad/professional committee appointments to academic councils, Chancellor committees, and other institutional entities. 
• Mandating that UCLA is a campus of respect, tolerance, and collegiality.