I write to provide you information regarding the 2008 - 2009 Student Union Assembly (SUA) elections process as well as a few SUA Chair's Office announcements. This spring, SUA will elect new officers, as well two-thirds of our College Representatives. We are now accepting candidate nomination petitions for the following positions:
- Student Union Assembly Chair (one)
- SUA External Vice Chair (one)
- SUA Internal Vice Chair (one)
- Commissioner of Academic Affairs (one)
- Organizing Director (one)
- Commissioner of Diversity (one)
- College Representatives (two per college = 20 total)
The deadline to submit a candidate nomination petition is Friday, April 4, at 5 p.m. For more information, including the nomination petition form, the procedures and the SUA elections timeline, please visit:
For those students not running for office, please note that there are
plenty of opportunities to become involved throughout the elections
process, including:
- Signing candidate petitions (please remember not to endorse more than one
candidate for the same position).
- Attend the candidate forum (dates and times tba)
- Inform yourself about the SUA officer candidates via their candidate
statements (posted on the Campus Elections website in early May):
- Inform yourself about the Referenda Measures on this year's ballot
(posted on the Campus Elections website in mid April):
- Vote during the Spring Campus Elections (May 14 - 21)
Spring Quarter Events and Announcements:
- The Chair's Office interns of SUA are hosting a series of informational events that speak to every student on campus. Jamba Juice will help host our first event on April 9th by selling their most popular drinks for only $4.00. Then we will have Cold Stones for those ice cream lovers later in April. During the first couple of weeks the 10 colleges should expect a challenge game. Over the internet where the 10 colleges can play games online to battle each other, for fun of course. We have another informational exposure that includes In-And -Out, taking place in the Quarry later on in May.
All of these to be followed by a TownHall meeting that will happen towards the end of the quarter between the students and administrators about some of the concerning issues here at UCSC. We are expecting a productive Spring Quarter 2008, come and join us and look out for fliers. The town hall to be hosted by the interns of the chair of SUA is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, May 7, and will consist of a two-hour moderated forum between students and administration designed to address a host of campus wide issues related to academics, student life, development, student fees, and other issues of pertinence. Please mark your calendars so that you may come out and voice your opinions regarding these and other matters. For more information or if you would like to assist in planning the town hall forum, please contact Geoff Trautman (SUA Programming Intern) at gtrautma@ucsc.edu or Christi Suchil (SUA Chair) at .
Latin American Philosophy (Philosophy 80-E)
Prof. Rasmus Winther rgw@ucsc.edu
This course addresses important thinkers, particularly philosophers, in Latin America. Would any possible general school of Latin American
Philosophy/Thought have to appeal to quintessential Western philosophical questions regarding knowledge, values and reality? What difference does Latin American ethnic and national diversity, as well as strong political and social inequality, make to the development of core philosophical questions and frameworks? In order to attempt to answer these questions, we explore the intellectual, cultural, and historical background of Latin America by first reading *The Idea of Latin America* by Walter Mignolo and parts of *Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent* by Eduardo Galeano. We then turn to important historical thinkers such as Sor Juana de la Cruz, Simón Bolivar, and Jorge Luis Borges. We end by investigating the rich variety of contemporary Latin American Thought, including the work of the revolutionary Subcomandante Marcos, the "pedagogy of hope" of Freire as well as more orthodox contemporary analytic and continental philosophers working particularly in
Mexico and Argentina. Perhaps the very notion of a Latin American
Philosophy is an example of *orientalism*? The expectation is that this course will challenge you to reconsider how you see the nature, dynamics, historicity and cultural-specificity of Philosophy/ Thought.
I hope you take some of this information and use it to you advantage. Feel free to contact myself or any other SUA office (or perhaps your college representative) for more information or to get involved.
Christi Suchil
Chair of the Student Union Assembly (SUA)
831.459.4838
