documents committee

Page for the documents from the 2009-2010 GSA Documents Committee chaired by Colin Murphy.

UCD GSA Statement on the Regents Fee Increases.pdf
UCD GSA Statement on Board of Regents Meetings.pdf

GSA_GSHIP Campus Support.pdf

Please provide your comments and feedback to the letter in draft below.

Recent events have called attention to the presence of discrimination and intolerance within the UC system in general and UC Davis in particular. The UC Davis Graduate Student Association extends its unwavering support and solidarity with those groups who work towards promoting tolerance, diversity and discourse in all groups of people. We strongly condemn the actions of individuals and groups who seek to intimidate or exclude anyone from full and free exercise of their rights as individuals and members of the campus community.

Our Association spans the range of ethnic, gender, socioeconomic and identity groups that make up the diverse population of the UC Davis campus. We hold a variety of leadership, teaching, advocacy and academic roles. We strive to ensure that all students can utilize the wealth of opportunities offered by the University without fear, oppression or intolerance. We strongly feel that it is incumbent upon every member of the community, minority and majority, to take action to reduce intolerance on the campus and in society at large. This cannot be an action undertaken solely by groups that represent traditionally disadvantaged elements of society - it must be a united effort from all members of our community. No one can sit on the sidelines in this effort, we must all be advocates for change.

We call upon the campus to take immediate steps to facilitate dialog and develop a plan of action to address the presence of discrimination and intolerance. We support the efforts of groups like the Cross-Cultural Resource Center; the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Resource Center, the Women's Resource and Research Center, the WWRC, Graduate Allies Program, Hillel House, Black Graduate and Professional Student Association and the Campus Committee on Affirmative Action to generate dialog and propose solutions. We call upon the Administration /*and student body*/ to support these groups in their efforts.

For too long, intolerance and hatred have existed just below the threshold of public consciousness on our campus. We should not ignore these trends any longer and remain silently complicit, but instead bring them into the open for the community to reflect upon and grow.

COMMENTS

Do we ourselves have any specific ideas or suggestions to propose in order "raise public consciousness" and "facilitate dialog"? Would an organized march through campus be feasible? If it were done during the regular school time it would mean those with classes couldn't attend, but I do think it would be a powerful, and very visible show of support.

It might be better to just advertise existing events (are there more town hall style events planned? There was a rally today that we just missed out on advertising).

I’m not sure about promoting any particular event. Perhaps we might suggest engagement with the subject in the long term, making it a full time focus of the university rather than a brief reaction to these incidents. Suggesting, maybe, that the Chancellor’s vision not simply encourage diversity but also really focus on promoting understanding and cooperation between groups on our diverse campus.

"WWRC" — I did a campus search on this and the only references seem to be to the Women's resource and research center, more commonly abbreviated WRRC (which makes sense to me). If this is something other than the Women's resource and research center, I think that it should be spelled out. It it is the Women's resource and research center, I suggest making it consistent — removing the abbreviation (WRRC), or adding it in for the other units (e.g. LGBTRC).

Secondarily, I do really like encouraging the campus to fully consider the recomendations that will be produced by **** insert appointed committee name****.

Comments:

2010-03-10 17:16:51   Let's not promote individual events. I agree that we should focus on more long-term long-lasting solutions. —128.120.109.12

2010-03-10 22:15:24   Overall, I like it...good work, Committee! My only quibble is with the statement about "discourse in all groups of people". I'm just not sure if this is the clearest wording. Perhaps "among all groups of people" would be better? —69.237.116.145

2010-03-17 10:40:11   Great job, thanks for working on this. Just a minor point - 2nd line, shouldn't it say "The UC Davis GSA extends its unwavering support and solidarity TO those groups..." (rather than WITH)? —169.237.90.2