This week our UC San Diego chapter won a successful campaign to pass a campus-wide referendum to keep CALPIRG here at UCSD.
The CALPIRG chapter at UCSD is funded through the voluntary pledge system, whereby students opt in to pay the CALPIRG Students voluntary fee via Student Businesses Services.
This funding allows CALPIRG to hire professional staff that work full time to help students develop strategic campaigns and train students to run effective grassroots campaigns and lobby elected officials.
By combining student power and staff expertise, CALPIRG has helped win results for the environment and the public for over 40 years. We recently helped pass the statewide ban on plastic grocery bags to protect our oceans, secure $5 million in the federal budget for open educational resources (ie free textbooks), and convinced the town of La Jolla to stop using bee killing pesticides.
The CALPIRG referendum reaffirmed the existing funding system. Last week during the AS Elections, the student body voted to pass the CALPIRG referendum and keep the CALPIRG chapter here at UCSD.
We were endorsed by 85 student leaders on campus, including the Guardian newspaper. You can read the Guardian’s endorsement here.
Friday’s victory means that students who have signed up to be dues paying members of CALPIRG can continue to donate and CALPIRG can continue to run our internship and volunteer program for the public interest.
We’re very excited that the UCSD community supports student activism, student power, and social change for the environment and public interest.
Now that we’ve demonstrated our broad support from the student body, we’re going to switch our focus back to our spring campaigns for more clean energy, to save bees, and to register voters.
It’s time to get back to making an impact on issues that matter to students, because now more than ever, our society needs a group like CALPIRG that trains students to have an impact on pressing real world issues affecting our generation.
Here’s a list of student leaders that support CALPIRG at UCSD
- Marco-Landon Siu, APSA Political Action Coordinator
- Alex Hansen, NASA President
- Monica Valdez, Warren Organization on Cultural Experience Co-Chair
- Kendrick Trinh, Cal Animage Beta President
- Karen Yanes, Central Americans Raising Awareness in Solidarity Publicity and Marketing Chair
- Kayla Chun, KSDT DJ
- Chris Robertson, Co-op Union Representative
- Anika Balse, Flying Sams Clinic Coordinator
- Adam Morrison, FIJI President
- Keenan Chan, Hong Kong Student Union Secretary
- Haley Higa, Delta Delta Delta President
- Arnel Padilla, Kaibigang Pilipin@ Cultural Coordinator
- Haley Higa, Alternative Breaks Service Leader
- Arnel Padilla, Circle K Family Head
- Diego Villarreal Alejandre, Frequency President
- Justin Park, Acamazing President
- Nicole Wells, Dancesport Captain
- Hunter Miranda, Sigma Chi Philanthropy and Delegate
- Stacey Lin, Student Health Advocates Co-President
- Nora Yagolnitser, Hillel Triton Jewish Leader
- Shane Jensen, Musician’s Club Social Events Coordinator
- Leo Amador, FOOSH Officer
- Wiley Bowden, Ellie’s Garden Co-President
- Sherriah Harrington, Softball Principal Lower-Div Member
- Heather Helvink, Sierra Club Officer
- Apollo Blatchley, Ovulation Nation President
- Duc Tran, AIChE President
- Wayne Phung, Triton TV Producer
- John Harris, Grow UCSD Officer
- Alicia Lunardhi, AMSA President
- Kirsten Seuter, AMSA – Community Outreach Coordinator
- John Harris, Sierra Club Director
- Nhat Nguyen, Swipes on Hunger President
- Wesley Chaffin, DVC Club President
- Lauryn Johnson, Alpha Chi Omega President
- Jon Maroun, Sigma Chi President
- Alisa Rogers, Phi Sigma Rho President
- Pranav Akella, Chi Phi President
- Arthi Venkat, Muir Outspoken Outreach Coordinator
- Henri Etel Skinner, Muir Outspoken Co-President
- Steven Moody, Sigma Phi Epsilon President
- Jacob Martinez, Intervarsity Leadership
- Nayeli Gonzalez, Destino President
- Pace Hartmann, Pi Kappa Alpha Philanthropy
- Noman Nasim, Alpha Lambda Mu President
- Elizabeth Kim, Inter-College Resident’s Association President
- Josiah Glesener, Cru Principal Member
- Jason Manley, San Diego Homeless Health Initiative President
- Minghao Guo, Chinese Student Association Chair
- Christopher Ballesteros, Triton Navs Leader
- Kyle Sit, Sigma Nu President
- Elaine Silverman, Engineers for a Sustainable World President
- Dani Tamura, Alpha Epsilon Phi President
- Jordon Yoshida, Pi Kappa Alpha President
- Arya Kaul, Bioinformatics Club President
- Nathan Le, Phi Alpha Delta President
- Marie Rosario, Kaibigang Pilipin@ Vice Chair Internal
- Emily Zhang, Movement Exchange Principal Member
- Selena Freidman, Track and Field Team Captain
- Vinit Adani, Inter-Fraternity Council VP External
- Denasia Gaines, Black Student Union Chair
- Yash Rathi, SangamSD Co-President
- Natalia King, I love a clean San Diego Leader
- Sidney Trinh, Sigma Omicron Pi President
- Hannah Cho, Kappa Kappa Gamma President
- Brianna Inghilterra, Delta Gamma President
- Adam Klas, Phi Delta Theta President
- Yifei Liu, Chinese Student Association Officer
- Alex Morrow, Alternative Breaks Member
- Abdullah Bawazir, Duly Noted Member
- Steven Russum, Village Edible Garden
- Ryan Sullivan, QSUN
- Dave Lightfoot, ESW Project Member