In the past five years or so, I’ve made several 24 hour — give or take a few hours — trips to San Francisco or Oakland. In the past, the trips fell in to two categories:

1. Activism: in May 2001, I attended the UC Regents meeting at UCSF where the Regents voted to rescind SP-1 and SP-2. Those policies banned the consideration of race, ethnicity and gender in admissions, hiring and contracting policies. It was largely symbolic as the UC still falls under California’s statewide ban on race, Proposition 209 (in the California Constitution as Section 31). We left on May 16th and returned as soon as the meeting was over. Two years later I came to a huge anti-war rally in San Francisco (January, 2003).
2. Pleasure: I made trips just for the Redhead’s birthday or to attend the best Café Tacuba concert ever.

With the exception of Chispa’s graduation in May, I don’t make those trips anymore. I just come for business. I’m not sure I mind getting out of LA that much.

The primary purpose of this trip was to be a “whiteliner” at the UC Regents meeting at UCSF-Mission Bay. I was elected to a position within the leadership of the UC Student Association on Sunday. That automatically meant that I fulfill one of my responsibilities of the position: attending all Regents meetings.

I spoke during the Public Comment period, which I had not done since 2001. Today, I spoke on the need to restore academic preparation (also known as outreach) funding to 2002 levels at 33 million. It’s not much different than saying that the UC needs to better reflect the diversity of this state. This year, the Governor funded academic preparation programs at 19.3 million, but that’s still down a lot from the peak levels about 5 years ago. I spoke mainly on my own experience with outreach programs.

I entered UCLA in 1998 as part of the first class to be negatively impacted by the ban on affirmative action. One of the main ways university administrators, legislators, Regents and students sought to mitigate the impact was by exponentially increasing funding to outreach programs. These programs targeted “disadvantaged schools”. Basically, they were schools in rural areas and the inner city. The schools had large populations of low income, first generation and underrepresented minorities (codeword for black, Chicana/o and Latina/o and Native American). I volunteered for a student-initiated program begun in the spring of 1998 (we didn’t get paid, unlike EAOP which Oso worked for). We served one school and no more than 20 students. The program now has a huge staff of about 40 undegraduate coordinators, tutors and peer advisors. They get funding from students who voted to increase their fees to fund outreach programs, matching grants from the UCLA chancellor’s office, monies from the state legislature and partnerships with school districts and community-based organizations. Some of the high school students I once advised and tutored are now UC students, one has already graduated and others work with outreach programs on their respective campuses.

State funding also goes to programs which serve undergraduate students who want to go on to graduate or professional school. I have friends who also benefited from these programs at the same time they mentored and tutored students at Venice. Maria was in the UC LEADS program for science students and is now a PhD student in biology at UC Berkeley. Chispa was in the UCLA Law Fellows program and then went on to earn her JD at UC Hastings.

And then there are the people like myself whose experiences working with the students at Venice helped shape my future educational goals and current research interests.

I hope the goal to increase academic preparation funding is realized this year. It will make flight delays, traffic on the 405 on my way to LAX, early morning meetings, and weekend-long meetings worth the frustration, effort, and loss of sleep.