Support ASE Status for College Academic Mentors!

Don’t take away her funding! Especially a year into her program.

These graduate students provide a vital service to other students and allows meaningful work and benefits as they pursue their own academic interests. Terminating their positions is terrible.

Save our CAMs! UCLA needs to commit to counseling services for undergraduates and fundour CAMs with fee remissions so they can stay in graduate school. They provide vital academic services in College Academic Counseling.

UCLA is a campus with a huge student body and large cohorts of freshmen come in every year. A continued form of individual support like CAM in the first two years of university is a crucial complement to New Student Orientation where presentations attempt to pour into the students all the essential academic information within the short span of three days. Personally, CAM has helped my transition into university and still is the first accessible go-to place where I seek academic advice.

As a former CAM, I urge the UCLA Graduate Division to not cut the program’s benefits for upcoming graduate students. CAMs provide valuable support for undergraduate students in a manner that is very difficult to find at other counseling offices of UCLA. During my time in the position, CAMs were seated at cubicles that were next to each other at the College Academic Counseling office. On numerous occasions, I would overhear sessions between students and CAMs where the students sounded so conflicted and sad about something, and at some point the CAM would end up telling them something that was so…. RIGHT, that it made me wish I had had CAMs I could have turned to when I was an undergrad at UCLA. CAMs do important work with students, especially marginalized students. Please continue to support the program.

The College Academic Mentors program is a win-win solution for supporting both undergraduate and graduate students. To illustrate your commitment to supporting a diverse student body, I urge the UCLA Graduate Division to reconsider and reverse this decision.

By diminishing their benefits, you will diminish the benefits of their services for undergraduates.

College Academic Mentors play an essential role in the personal and academic success of undergraduate students at UCLA. In addition to academic advising, CAMs also provide a wealth of knowledge and experiences about graduate/professional school with our students - many who are looking for guidance from firsthand experiences. CAMs teach our students lifelong skills that they can apply during their undergraduate career and beyond, and make the large campus feel more intimate. Knowing how much support CAMs provide our undergraduate students, it it would only make sense for CAMs to also receive the support from Graduate Division and remain under the ASE title. Please reconsider this decision.

UCLA should find more ways to support their doctoral students especially on financial stability

I fully support CAMs and view them as an invaluable resource for our growing student population!

This is an incredible program that benefits undergraduate and graduate students, while also providing the dire support needed to help our advising staff. If this is taken away, how will the university replace this support? Please consider the incredible benefits this program provides.

As a an alumni of the Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a former College Academic Mentor (CAM), I urge the UCLA Graduate Division to reconsider your inappropriate and devastating action against the support of College Academic Mentors (CAMs) in the office of College Academic Counseling (CAC). Tasked with advising first and second-year undergraduate students at UCLA, CAMs work in locations across campus to serve our robust undergraduate population. As the first in my immediate and extended family to obtain both an undergraduate and graduate degree, the son of migrant farm workers from Northern California who unfortunately never had the privilege to be afforded an education, a member of the LGBTQ community, and a community college transfer, this is especially heartbreaking for me. As such, at UCLA, many personal barriers have already been placed on me, the other CAMs, and countless undergraduate students in their pursuits of higher education. This action will further compound those barriers and aims to dehumanize students. Our undergraduates need and deserve to see mentors that share their experiences. This is so much more than fee remission, this is a personal attack on me and all marginalized students who often times have nowhere else to go to seek assistance and guidance on the UCLA campus. CAM was AND CONTINUES TO BE, one of the few spaces that have validated my existence and belonging, not only as a graduate student but as an individual as well. CAM contributed to my personal and professional development in ways no one else ever has. CAM gave me the resilience that I needed to finish my graduate degree. Thank you, CAM! UCLA Graduate Division, please reconsider the devastating action this will not only have on the CAM’s but the entire UCLA community as a whole.

Students are the best advocates for students. We understand what each other’s going through, and we trust our peers. This program needs to be sustained for the overall good and success of UCLA.

This seems like a ridiculously shortsighted decision on the part of the university - from an ethical, economic, and social perspective. CAMS are integral to supporting the diverse student body, and the do it all while creating knowledge in their own research areas - why would the university not support that?

Graduate students' labor is already undervalued; cutting compensation for CAMs creates an equity issue in that only those who can afford to take this position will do so, thus depriving undergrads from underrepresented backgrounds of role models like themselves.

Keep CAM! We need our future generations educated!

As a former CAM, I know how valuable we are to CAC and especially first and second year students. Working as a CAM was the primary way I was able to fund my graduate education. As a current departmental counselor at UCLA, I am also able to see just how many students CAMs are able to advise and meet with as we refer them to the College. The work and support that CAMs provide to undergraduates is just as valuable, if not more, than a TA or GSR. Any action that would potentially lower the amount of CAMs able to be hiring or willing to work in the position would be a loss that would be felt across campus, not just in CAC. It would be a disservice to students and staff alike.

CAMs are a huge part of the support system at Ucla and should be given the benefits and respect they deserve.

As a former CAC academic counselor I am well aware of the valuable services that the CAMs provide to the undergraduate student body.

Dear Graduate Division, Please reconsider your decision!!!! I invite your consideration for more creative solutions!! Remember that we are in the business of educating and supporting students!