Serving the Needs of Graduate and Professional Students at UCR
Advocacy
The UCR Graduate Student Association (GSA) actively advocates for the needs and interests of graduate and professional students not only within the University of California, Riverside (UCR) but also extends its advocacy efforts to broader spheres, including the UC System, state, and federal levels. At the UCR level, the GSA collaborates closely with university administrators to address campus-specific concerns, ensuring that the voices of graduate students are heard in university decision-making processes.
On the UC System level, the GSA works in conjunction with other UC campuses to influence policies that impact graduate students across the entire university system. This collaboration often involves engaging with the UC Office of the President and other system-wide committees. At the state level, the GSA participates in legislative advocacy, liaising with state lawmakers to promote laws and policies that support the academic and professional growth of graduate students. Additionally, the GSA actively engages in federal advocacy, addressing issues such as research funding, educational policy, and immigration reform that affect graduate students nationwide. Through these multi-level advocacy efforts, the UCR GSA ensures that the concerns and needs of graduate and professional students are represented and addressed at every pertinent administrative and legislative level.
On this page you will find examples of the recent efforts that the GSA has led and been a part of in order to improve the lives and agency of graduate and professional students at UCR.
2023 Advocacy
On March 28th-29th a UCRGSA Delegation traveled to Washington D.C. to conduct advocacy meetings with legislators. The delegation was composed by Ivett Gabriella, GSA President, Dulce Alarcón Payan, GSA Legislative Advocacy Officer, Zaira Vidal Cortes, GSA PhD student and DACA holder, and Fernando D. Márquez Duarte, GSA VP of External Affairs.
We held meetings four in-person meetings in D.C.:
- Met with Julian Garcia, Education Policy team of Senator Alex Padilla and another staff member.
- Met with Taylor DuBard, Legislative Correspondent on immigration to Senator Dianne Feinstein
- Met with Congressman Mark Takano and his policy analyst Adrienne Castro.
- Met with Adriana Bankston, Legislative Analyst and the staff of the UC Office of Federal Government Relations.
The topics that were addressed in these meetings were:
- Disability rights
- Immigration/DACA
- Housing
We made white papers on Disability rights, and Immigration/DACA and delivered a copy in each meeting. Our white papers and asks were very well received by all legislators. One of the staff members of Alex Padilla that we talked to in the meeting is DACA herself, so she was specially interested and willing to work on our asks on the topic so Senator Padilla can support UCR international and DACA graduate students.
Senator Feinstein’s staffer told us that Senator Feinstein will be supporting our asks and told us that the Senator is working on a bill proposal to improve housing situation for students, which was very interesting. Finally Rep. Takano was very supportive of our asks and very knowledgeable about the situation for the Dream Act vote in Congress, as well as offered us specific and very useful tips to make UCR admins respect rights of students with disabilities.
The meeting with the OC Office of Federal Government Relations was also useful because they heard our situation as grad students first-hand and we told them what are the areas where UCR has to improve to better serve us as graduate students.
Disability Justice for Graduate Students
This whitepaper, written by Dulce Alarcón Payan, examines the extremely important issue that over 400,000 U.S. graduate and professional students live with disabilities, facing significant barriers despite ADA legislation, with less than 7% at UC receiving accommodations, leading to a preference for online learning which still lacks adequate accessibility and support.