Note: The views expressed in this interview do not necessarily reflect the views of the Bruin Political Review, and the publication of this interview does not constitute an endorsement for the candidate. Vote through MyUCLA between May 10th and May 17th.

Bruin Political Review (BPR): Okay, can you tell me your first and last name please?

Joe Lin: Joe Lin.

BPR: What is your year? And what are you studying?

Joe Lin: I'm a second year computer science major.

BPR: Pronouns?

Joe Lin: He, him.

BPR: And what position are you running for within USAC?

Joe Lin: Internal Vice-President

BPR: Can you tell me a little bit about yourself? And what inspired you to run for internal vice president?

Joe Lin: Yeah, for sure. Just a little bit about myself, In terms of my campus enrollments, I've been pretty active in USAC student governments. I currently work in the IVP. And I'm one of the directors. Throughout the year, I've been leading various workshops, and various initiatives to help support all of our student organizations on campus. Also being like a CS major, I'm actively involved with a couple of CS orgs, as well, including Explore Tech, where I am a director, directing technical contents. We brought over 500 and more underprivileged high school students and we basically teach workshops to inspire them to pursue a career in STEM. So that's one other aspect of my leadership experience.

I'm also part of a couple of cultural orgs, including like ACA and torso, because I'm Asian American. So that was one of the ways I've connected with my cultural roots.

And as to your question of, like, what inspired me to run? I think one part of it is the fact that I've been doing this for a long time, and I'm really passionate about it. And I find, I guess, a source of joy and happiness in serving others. And it's just like, half selfishly speaking, but like, it just feels good when you see other people happy. And being a CS major, I don't want to sit behind my computer and code all day, right? I really hope that I can do as much as I can to support my peers to support the communities that I'm part of. And just so that, once I eventually leave UCLA, I would have made some sort of impact on the campus. Yeah, that's part of the reason why I chose to run.

BPR: So this isn't your first time running for USAC?

Joe Lin: Yeah, it's not. This is actually my second time.

BPR: How do you think the skills and experiences you've gained being part of USAC this year will translate into Internal Vice President for next year?

Joe Lin: I think the obvious answer to that is the fact that being in the office itself has already given me a lot of exposure as to how things are currently run. And so I think it's safe to say that if I'm elected as IVP, I can easily fulfill all of the basic responsibilities as IVP have, which includes administrative procedures, working with student orgs, because that's a big part of being the internal vice president versus external. And also, there's various initiatives that have been running every year, especially things like the Housing Relief Fund that will need to be continued and executed properly so that we can continue upholding these really great initiatives for our student body.

I guess something else is that, because I'm aware of how things run, I understand where we are lacking in our student government. And this is not to this not to insult anyone in student government right now. But I feel like there's a general lack—at least for IVP—but there's a general lack of organization, communication, and structure within how things are run. Understand that like student government is also bureaucratic so things run slowly, but I think there's just a lack of structure.

I remember, I guess elaborating on my experiences, but I served as ASB president in my high school and for every project, we will really like, do things. Really formally, we would have a project plan for each project, plan things months and months in advance, go through an entire approval process—like a staff member who's having the events would write their project, plan all the details, or send it over to the commissioner to approve, and then afterwards, they will send it to their executive to approve as well. So there's more accountability within all of these processes and more opportunities for us to refine all the events and initiatives that we plan on. So I think that's something that USAC is really lacking right now and I think—I'm not sure what your opinions are, but I think the general student body can sense that, or USAC, often struggles to push new initiatives out and get things done. And I think that is a direct reflection, or a direct result of this lack of structure within how things are run.

From my experiences in high school, and my knowledge of how USAC is run here at UCLA, I think I bring the skills and capabilities to run a really effective and efficient student government, at least as IVP, and I'll be able to bring all of the desires of the student body to life.

BPR: What steps do you think you could take to remedy the lack of structure within USAC?

Joe Lin: I think there's a lot of little things that can be done. Like for example. I don't know if this is exclusive to this year, but I think there was a lack of master calendaring and master budgeting, which is really surprising for such a big office like us who handle so many events throughout the year. So that's one step during master calendaring and master budgeting with all the directors.

And I guess elaborating on what I said before, establishing a sort of Project Plan structure—also that each commissioner is not to enforce more work on a staff member in IVP. In fact, it might even benefit a commissioner or a staff member because it will help them guide or help guide them through the planning process, and different things that you might need to consider. Like in high school, our project plans included a timeline or logistics section materials that needed to be bought. And just like a general structure for all the plans will already be a really good benefit to how we execute things in USAC.

And also, an additional benefit to this is that future users can now reference our documents, reference how we plan things. And they don't have to start from scratch. I feel like, although we do have access to previous offices, like documents, and forms, like there's no organization in those documents. Right now, if I was a staff member, and I plan something like I would just like, do it in my head and like talk to people and then get it working. So there's no documentation, which I think is really important to ensure – especially initiatives that are supposed to be run every year – will run efficiently, successfully. And like we can continue refining them. Otherwise, we always have to restart from scratch.

BPR: Building off with that, what platforms are you running on this year?

Joe Lin: So I have four main platforms. I think the titles hopefully are somewhat self explanatory, but they are, number one: campus resource refinements. Number two: quality of life improvements. Number three: resource accessibility and awareness. And number four: representing the student body's interests. I guess I can, I think there's two platforms that I always like to go deep into if we have time.

BPR: Yeah, definitely. We have probably like 30 minutes here.

Joe Lin: The first two that I talked about campus resource refinement and quality of life improvements, I think have a lot of ideas in them that will benefit the student body. In fact, I thought I came up with a lot of them based on the opinions of my peers. So starting off with campus resource refinement, one of my ideas was to create a centralized cloud platform. So this could be a website or an extension of the current use and website. But essentially the issue at hand is serious organizations, especially new ones, they lack guidance, and they often lack support and funding of important things needed to run a student org. For example, where to apply for funds, what funds? Like, would I be eligible for? How do I book facilities? And I think it's really important, especially again, for new student orgs that we provide – and this is part of my idea, as well, which is to launch a new student organization handbook. And this will serve as, like guidance for all student orgs no matter if you're new or old. But that way, like, if someone has a question about how things need to be processed, they can just consult the handbook. So this platform will have the handbook and also provide student orgs convenient access to all of their relevant documents and forms, like their bylaws, their funding application statuses.

And also, there's one more aspect of these bureaucratic procedures that really hinder our student government, student organizations, and that is funding and facilities. Because yeah, anything like any event that you plan here, you go through the funding process, and probably facilities as well. And so one of my plans is to form a subcommittee in IVP to coordinate with SOLE, who usually is a part of this entire process, but this committee will be coordinating with SOLE to streamline all these procedures. And essentially IVP would act as a direct liaison between all the student orgs. And will help fix any issues that serve as a direct line of communication, so that there's less burden on student orgs. And, yeah, I think that's the other.

BPR: Did you want to expand on your platforms? How do you intend to make them realistic goals?

Joe Lin: I still have some, like more platforms to cover, but I'll make sure to integrate how to do it.

BPR: Yeah, you can go over the other ones. And then speaking in general about how you can achieve them.

Joe Lin: So I think the next big category for this cabinet's resource refinement platform is funding or, and there's two types of fundings that I want to push for, one is targeted for student orgs. So for funding, there's two points I want to propose, which is one, club collaboration. And as the name suggests, this is mainly to encourage clubs to come together and collaborate on a larger scale event that serves the general student body. And I think this is necessary especially in our current times, because there's a general lack of unity and engagement from the student body. And I think, I mean, what better way to foster community and unity by encouraging clubs to come together and that way, when they plan these sorts of collaborative events, people from these two different communities, two or more different communities can come together. And yeah, there's this sort of uniting of students. So that's one thing. The other thing is the engineering project fund. And this mainly comes from because I'm a South Campus major, but often, there's a lot of other newer or like smaller engineering clubs that really need the funding to get their club running. Because as you may know, a big part of engineering is like the hands on components, right? We need the funds to build a bot or build some electronics. And it's really hard for a new organization to attract new members, or just grow in size if they don't have this initial funding to kickstart the project. So that's what the engineering project fund is for, to help these clubs establish their presence on campus and help them engage with more students. So those two are like student organization ones.

And there's also one major issue like that is more targeted towards individuals. And that is the issue of parking permits, as you might know, like parking permits are really expensive. And I think they hiked up the prices recently as well from city regulations. And that's really bad, especially for students who are living in apartments and have to travel a decent distance to campus or just like the general commuter. And so this fund will be an application based fund to help financially support students that are impacted by these like price hikes. And another aspect of this is that, I think, at least from what I've heard, a lot of students are not legally – but they like to – reduce their permit costs by sharing. Like, if they don't want to come on campus on all of the days, they would partner with a couple other students and share the permit with each other. So I want to push to make an administration at this, like permit sharing option as a formal option that you can opt into that way. I think students might be even more encouraged to get the permits, and it will be of lower cost for each student.

Where do we get these funds is the question and I think there's two main places that can be taken from in terms of USAC funding, and that is from the initial budget allocation at the start of the fiscal year. And also, there's other opportunities to extract funds from or reallocate funds from, and also kickstart this fund for future years. And that is surplus funding. I think, this past year, we actually had a million dollars of surplus funding. So there's more than enough money to prioritize these aspects of student life.

But that's campus resources we're finding to talk about is quality of life improvements, because it centers a lot around how we improve housing accessibility and affordability. And as you know, and as I've hinted at, at the start of this interview, a huge part of IVP responsibility is the housing relief fund. Iit was started – I'm not sure actually how long ago, but it's just an IVP responsibility. And from what I've noticed, from the statistics, and the results of our funding campaigns, and the off campus living fair that we run with it, I think – again, not to insult anyone, but I think the numbers are a little low, especially for like how big our campus is, and I want to be here to change that. I really want to expand this housing relief fund, because I know we can definitely do better.

So what does this look like? What this looks like is number one, if you are aware, the housing relief fund is partially funded by a spark campaign that we launch every year. And I think historically, it's reached like $10k in monetary value. And my goal, although not that much more, is to reach $15k. And I just set like a smaller goal, just so that my goals are reachable, and they're smart goals.

But I think the general idea is that to get more donations for this one, we really, as a student government, need to work on fostering connections with the UCLA alumni system, and also corresponding donors, because I'm also in the UCLA alumni scholars club, so I know that we have a lot of really passionate people who are willing to give back to the UCLA community. But I think right now, there's not enough awareness about this initiative. Like, I feel like a lot of alumni and donors don't even know about this fund that we're doing. So I think it's really about connecting with more alumni and donors, promoting this more and gathering more funds for the housing relief fund. I think, in previous years, we probably supported only 100ish students, which is a little, at least in my opinion.

And then a second aspect to housing accessibility—and I guess just sort of like housing convenience, a lot of a lot of students live in apartments right? So a lot of students seeking these apartment units—often we procrastinate or we might not have the experience to know how to search for these apartment units. So I think there needs to be an off-campus housing program to support students in finding apartments. And what this housing platform will do is, number one, allow students to digitally connect directly with property owners. I know like right now, everyone just calls. But I think it's a lot more convenient for property owners to display their availability, and be able to communicate details with you through a website.

And another aspect of this is students—pretty much everyone has a one year lease. So one way or another, if you're not staying for summer, you're gonna have to sublet. And right now the options for subletting are probably just posting in group chats, or Reddit, or Facebook, something like that, which I guess it works. But I think there's room for making it more convenient for students. And that is the housing platform: the housing platform will support students in publicizing their subletting options. And for people who are looking for apartments over the summer, they can go on this and easily find good options for themselves. I think this housing platform will also just in general streamline the process to make room for arrangements.

BPR: What is the number one issue that you think UCLA is facing right now? And how do you intend to address it?

Joe Lin: My response would be more general, but I think there's a foundational issue that our campus is struggling with, a lack of unity. We all know, like what's been going on recently, and it's just, at least for me, who works in student government, it's a little disheartening to see how a lot of students are discouraged by world events. And how the campus mood is like, with reason or not, the campus mood is kind of low, a lack of unity.

How to tackle this? Well, in one way, I talked about how the club collaboration funds can help tackle this by encouraging different, potentially diverse communities to come together and do an event together. But obviously, that doesn't solve the whole issue. I guess the issue is more so a lack of unity and a safe campus environment. And so, how do we create a safe campus environment? I think part of that is to open up new avenues for people to express their opinions and be comfortable in expressing their opinions. I think that the more people express their opinions, the more people understand about each other. And I think it opens gateways for unity.

So how do we open up new opportunities for students to express their opinions? I think right now, the main way is if people have concerns or issues, what they do is just go to a USAC meeting and request for public comment. But I think some of the issues are that USAC meetings are already really packed. So often when I observe a USAC meeting, there's often little discussion, or it's a little awkward to like, I just see some people come in, do public comment, and right after nothing happens. And it's just like the next public comment. But I think that's the general structure of the meeting. There's no formal recognition of what students have been saying, whether that be because there's a lack of time or any other reason. For this reason, we really need to push for new avenues for people to express their opinions, which include things like town halls, and just like discussion meetings. And what that would look like is just reserving some sort of facility, and having perhaps an overarching topic that seems to be of interest to the general student body, and just bringing students in. And like establishing a safe environment for people to express their opinions regarding the issue of, and not just expressing opinions, but also encouraging discussion amongst students.

Besides this, the next step is also for USAC to really act upon what the students desire. So I think it's important that you have officers also attend these hearings, or these town halls, to make sure that we're all in touch with what students want. And because at the end of the day, I'm not in this position for myself, right, I'm in this position, because, I mean, hopefully I care about the student body, and hopefully, like what I'm doing aligns with what students want. So it was really important, like to have reserve officers align their thinking to what students desire. And I think, oftentimes, even with good intentions, USAC officers have, knowingly or unknowingly, strayed away from understanding student interests because they're so busy, you're sectioned away from the rest of the student body. And that's also part of the issue: part of the issue is also that USAC is sort of so distant from the student body. We really need to bridge the gap between student government and the students. And part of this is also to host office hours, regular office hours for students to be able to come in and be able to directly talk to USAC officers.

BPR: What makes you different from other candidates?

Joe Lin: What makes me different from other candidates? I think all of the candidates for IVP like, we generally have good student government and leadership experience. We're all involved in USAC. But, number one, I'm a South Campus major. So I think being a South Campus major and part of USAC, the duality really helps me tap into the opinions of the entire student body, which is part of what makes me unique.

The other part is that a lot of my platforms, and a lot of our current needs also surround some sort of project that probably involves some sort of technology. And I think being a computer science major, I'm really capable of actually executing all of these ideas. I know a lot of USAC officers have pitched tech related ideas before that would really benefit the student body, but never have been able to fully implement it. But I think I can really provide this technology based skill set to the leadership setting, so that we can actually get all of these ideas running and executed.