Last year, undergraduate student government led UCLA’s Get Out the Vote campaign, made progress on making nighttime and outdoor programming possible and failed to repeal the expected cumulative progress requirement.

For the coming year, Undergraduate Students Association Council plans to serve and advocate for students by collectively focusing on shared governance, campus safety, sustainability, strengthening the campus community, and providing for student well-being in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered community.

At least half of USAC’s 13 offices have committed to each concentration for the year, with plans for programming, advocacy, and providing resources that will further the aims of each goal.

Shared governance, which involves realizing greater student representation on all campus advisory and decision-making bodies, would create more student voice and student votes on the types of committees that decide such policies.

“We have no real vote, no real power,” said General Representative Brian Neesby.

“Our ultimate goal would be to get a vote on every committee that concerns students, ideally multiple votes.”

Neesby became an advocate for shared governance after transferring to UCLA. Shared governance is institutionalized into the California community colleges by law, and Neesby said he was shocked that UC system didn’t have anything comparable.

“I think in negotiating with the administration, we need that voice and that power,” he said.

However, gaining support among the administration for further student power on campus bodies may be difficult, Neesby admits.

In the early 1990s a student push for shared governance gained additional representation on various committees, but students have since lost their votes on many of these bodies.

In light of this past summer’s string of armed robberies in Westwood, campus safety is an issue that councilmembers say has not received enough attention, especially as the student populations both on campus and in Westwood continue to increase.

“We haven’t been addressing it as we should, and safety is a need that is always there,” said Student Welfare Commissioner Tracy Pham.

Much of council’s campus safety efforts will involve promotional and educational campaigns to teach students basic safety techniques against common avoidable crimes, such as laptop theft.

Other campus safety objectives include the installation of a crosswalk on Gayley Avenue at Landfair Avenue and increased accessibility to services such as the nighttime escorts offered by the Community Service Officer program.

In addition to teaching students how to protect themselves and their belongings, council also wants to show them how to protect the environment through its attention to sustainability.

Facilities commissioner Joe Vardner said that students making a concerted effort towards energy conservation is crucial because the current generation of college students will likely see huge changes in the way energy is created and used in the coming years, and now is the time to change their habits.

“I think everyone’s on the same page that we are, during our lifetime, going to see fossil fuels become extremely rare and seldom used,” Vardner said.

Sustainability is also a wise focus for the university as it continues to weather the effects of the budget crisis, he added.

“The Regents are not letting UCLA borrow as much money as we want for the campus, so we need to figure out how to save money. Saving money means efficiency, and sustainability is all about efficiency,” Vardner said.

Much of the sustainability campaign will be educational, teaching students and student groups about what they call “sensitive sustainability.”

“It’s getting people to realize that it’s a bigger issue than just consumption,” Vardner said.

Councilmembers say the need to advocate and provide services for the LGBT community is also a particularly pressing matter now, after the LGBT Center was vandalized twice and three LGBT students committed suicide last year.

Goals include expanding LGBT sensitivity trainings for student groups and Ashe Center employees, establishing more gender neutral bathrooms on campus for transgendered students, and implementing policies that will increase the comfort and safety of LGBT students living in on-campus housing, such as including an LGBT sensitivity question on housing forms.

“I believe every student deserves to have a safe space on this campus, to grow and figure out what to do with their life,” said General Representative P.C. Zai.

But their most ambitious goal within LGBT advocacy is not integration and inclusion, but acceptance, which requires bridging the gap between the LGBT community and those on campus that traditionally have not been accepting of LGBT students, Zai said.

Council also hopes to find ways for all students to get involved with LGBT students.

While the various LGBT groups on campus organize and interact well with each other, it’s difficult for LGBT allies to get involved, Zai said.

USAC also hopes to promote events this year that will bolster UCLA’s sense of campus community, making new students feel welcome and included as well as trying to bring alumni back to the campus for traditional events.

As UCLA has evolved as a community, the need for student programming has changed, and more nighttime and weekend activities and events need to be provided for students, said General Representative Marwa Kaisey.

“We’re not a commuter campus anymore, we’re a residential campus, and USAC is hoping to fill that void,” Kaisey said.

Council will also be working on the Get Out the Vote Campaign and increasingly financial aid availability on a smaller scale.

This year’s Get Out the Vote campaign will center around California’s Nov. 8 special election. Concrete objectives include registering at least 5,000 new student voters, as well as educating students about the initiatives to make them more informed voters. Council also plans to focus efforts on financial aid in the current climate of increasing student fees and decreasing availability of aid.