Student Union Assembly (SUA) will host a university budget forum Thursday, May 26. During the forum, Chancellor Cynthia Larive, Campus Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Lori Kletzer, and Associate Vice Chancellor Kimberley Register will present and answer questions about the 2021-2022 campus budget.
The forum will begin at 4:30 p.m. with SUA presenting general introductions and a logistics overview. At 5 p.m. the three panelists will join the zoom room. For the next fifty minutes, they will answer as many questions. In order to allow for as many questions as possible, SUA is soliciting questions ahead of time via the “Submit a Question” form feature at the top of this page. Forum attendees can also use this form to submit questions during the event. Four students will monitor and moderate all submitted questions.
After the forum, SUA and campus leadership will work together to answer any questions that could not be addressed within the allotted time frame. As well, they will offer a recap of all that was asked and answered. The forum will be hosted in webinar format and will be recorded.
By connecting the campus community directly with university leadership, SUA hopes the forum will offer an opportunity for students, staff, and faculty to become more informed about UC Santa Cruz’s budget, resource allocation, and fiscal decision making process. According to SUA Internal Vice President Kayla Gomez, the idea for the forum emerged from a lot of conversations about accessing university funds and a desire to understand where the money goes. While staff and faculty have traditionally offered similar forums, Gomez believes this is SUA’s first time hosting such an event. The need is apparent according to Gomez.
She explained, “There seems to be a constant frustration about where we are getting money from and also not having enough funding to fund essential resources that impact students’ lives. There seems to be a lot of disconnect about where the students’ money is going and what students get out of it. There are a lot of unanswered questions about key funding and where it’s going.” In saying all this, Gomez knows the forum itself will not resolve these concerns, but she hopes it’s a start.
Her SUA colleague, VIce President of Diversity and Inclusion María Dolores Castillo, shares this hope. Like Gomez, Castillo believes this forum offers an opportunity to close the gap that seems to exist between students and administration. When thinking about what would make the forum successful, Castillo surmised, “I’d like more students to feel more financially literate. The more we talk about it [budget and funds], the more we are aware of how things work. This awareness helps us know how to allocate resources. Ideally, the forum will also help bridge the divide between administration and students.”
While SUA is the official undergraduate student government at UC Santa Cruz, Gomez and Castillo want the entire campus community to know they are invited to Thursday’s forum. Gomez said, “Everyone is welcome. Undergraduates, graduates, faculty, and staff. Anyone who receives funding or who doesn’t understand the budget should attend.”
The campus community can use the following link and password to join the forum.
Link: ibm.co/3PfzGjr
Password: SUASpring2022
