 Good evening. This is what's going on. I'm John Lee. This is Zoe Vickstrom our guest this evening is Alex Lee the Associated Student Body president of UC Davis Alex. I want to thank you for being on our show. Yeah, thank you for inviting me On to the show. It's pleasure. So Let's start out with the big question you represent all of the undergraduate students a UC Davis How many students is that and what do you think it means to be their representative? Yeah So again, my name is Alex and I serve as the ASU city student body president for UC Davis And that's roughly about 29,000 undergrads and growing number every year So within the history of UC Davis, I don't think undergrads have ever came close to that number We're about close to the UCLA undergrads and I've talked with their undergrad president. I was like, wow We actually have the same constituency level now, but I think our population of undergrads has grown Not just in numbers, but more diverse and for more Metropolis and background I myself personally am from the South Bay in California So I was a and I know a lot of people are from even just my hometown come here And it's a great percentage of people who are more ethnically diverse more I guess class and income-based diverse and it's just a great population to represent and you know It's a lot of great minds to represent as a lot of pressure sometimes, but it's all worth in the end I think so I was a freshman 50 years ago when there were 8,000 undergraduates Just to give you a little perspective. Most of the kids were white we and Shortly after Chancellor Meyer became Chancellor in 71 70 We got a majority of women UCD so But the ethnic population has grown enormously Talk about a little about the ethnic diversity at UCD. Yeah, just like you mentioned John I think in more so than ever in use Davis history were more heterogeneous in our cultural background than ever We're roughly about 40% Asian identifying students We have 20% out-of-state students and that's a mixture of international and you know non-Californian students and right now I think we're starting to approach how California's diversity is where we're you know a minority majority states Where there's such you know diversity of cultures and backgrounds I can speak more for the Asian Pacific Islander community, which I am proud to belong to a lot of us come from the Bay Area in California or southern California and a lot of us come from first or second generation I know a couple of people that have had roots you know families that have been here since I'd say the The railroad days of California when we still had you know early waves of Chinese immigration But a lot of more recent Chinese immigrants and Asian immigrants have come over you know through the Vietnam War era through the You know change in China's history and everything So a lot of people have come to Davis and we're much less homogeneous than we were and that comes with its own rewards and struggles You know with so many different cultures that are often you know And ideas I think that are competing every now and then and trying to figure out how to work together in most harmonious kind of way Definitely makes being soon body president of everyone a bit more difficult but also more rewarding when we can bridge our communities together I think you see this a lot when administration kind of struggles to figure out in their old methods of You know governing over a more white more homogeneous even just white and more middle class now It's more you know working class middle class upper class just from all stretches of society and all such different races as Well like how do you govern that all together? I think administration sometimes finds that struggle more so than I do You know it's just different ways of thinking but I think I try as much as I can be future-oriented thinking and more macro picture And try to think you know there's this one issue that happens now But I think it's a larger systematic issue and try to fix the systematic issue too. I hope the answers question I'm not sure if I went on a tangent the point is for you to talk not for me to ask the question So let's talk a little about you personally. So Where'd you grow up San Jose? Why'd you pick you see David? Yeah, so I was actually Native born in California to has born in Sanford Hospital. I Lived in the San Jose area for my entire life and I still go back home every now and then I went to high school in Milpitas High School Where our percentage of Asian Americans was probably something similar in the two to fifty percent as well So I'm not a stranger to having a minority majority kind of Population it was actually quite the norm, you know to see other faces like mine and not to feel outcast in the society So it's nice that I think in a UC system. It reflects that a little bit coming to Davis though I actually took a tour of the UCs in the summer before my before I guess my senior year summer I don't even know anymore. I went to UC Santa Cruz. I went to UC Berkeley, and I went to UC Davis and I went to San Francisco State University too, and it just saw the kind of schools that maybe I was gonna attend out of all the UCs I went to though. I loved going use Davis the vibe felt nice. I liked how it looked. I liked the people and immediately already felt that kind of Reputation that use Davis had of being a very welcoming and friendly environment Not so much I could feel in UC Santa Cruz UC Berkeley not to say that they're not good schools So just I didn't feel that way and I knew a couple people from my high school had come to Davis So I thought it was more of a natural fit for me, and I haven't regretted since that choice ever since I Confirmed my attendant enrollment to come to Davis. I haven't read it since so it's been a great choice Right now. I'm studying political science and communications double major. I'm trying to graduate on time right now But you know juggling being a student leader and doing classes a little difficult But I think I'm gonna make it there in four years and hopefully after that I'll return eventually back to San Jose to contribute back to my community because I Think coming here as a student leader figuring out the kind of issues that Davis faces. I sometimes think it's interesting because it's like Davis the city and the community and UC Davis sometimes they all kind of have a a More miniature version of some of the issues that San Jose where I'm from a microcosm a microcosm Yes, it's like a little microcosm of the society that I've seen San Jose is like the fourth largest third largest city in California Just fluctuate one or the other. Yeah, I mean Exactly. Well the Silicon Valley is has driven a lot of of money And and so there are a lot of people there That's I mean South Bay has become an enormous much Metropolitan, yeah, there's a lot of software engineers there and you know now that the still tech boom obviously now there's a lot of business people folks that live there and it's all sorts of Interesting kind of walks of life out there, but my family moved there because my dad was a software engineer too So we went to Silicon Valley obviously just like a lot of kids in my high school and stuff that all their kids were engineers or you know Something techie kind of based wasn't quite the star culture it is now or you know this the Then we're kind of business now But definitely a lot of people there with kind of hopes of wealth and stuff like that So it's really cool. But yeah, definitely where I'm from in East San Jose is interesting mixture of you know Wealth from the peripheral area and it's crime But there's also a lot of diversity and there's a lot of tension in that area But it's still good school so good people. It's just I think you know poverty and systemic issues are still prevalent in the area And not to such a great degree up here, but I can see this kind of same I think roots of problems here that I wanted to bring back and say, you know, I kind of identified it here So I can bring it back, you know Or they're your universal Yeah, they're they're not a function of scale then a town of 50 where everybody knows everybody most people know Who the rich person is and and they know who you can ask for help and they're not usually the same person No, I Mean in San Jose, definitely, you know where the rich persons are and the people you can't ask for help are but it's just Well, I'm just saying that those are different standards. There are different value systems I I happen to think the second is much more powerful and So what I'm working on now, and then I want to know what you're working on is what I'm calling a metric more powerful than money Mm-hmm, and and that's what I'm interested in there are those kind of values. So Talk about the evolution of your education. What what did you think about studying when you got to use CDN? What are you thinking about now the evolution of my education? What I think about studying I still don't like it. I don't like studying obviously I think as most students can relate to yeah, but I think What is I forgot who said this quote, but something about don't let school get in the way of your education I've said that you said that obviously if and someone else has said that I've heard it before it like even in since high school Sure, but I've learned a lot through my roles in student leadership and obviously through my classes too I better how much I'm paying right intuition, but I learned a lot I think definitely some of the lessons you see in high school where I grew up with expectations Like oh college's gonna be so difficult. You have to study all the time you have to do all this You know XYZ and I'm like I come here and it's like not exactly what people in high school made out The teachers and advisors make it out to be but it still is very rigorous You know you're learning a lot of I think very applicable things and it's really up to the student to apply those things, you know Whether you're in the STEM field and you're waiting to go to med school and you're gonna have to apply it So eventually right how you know how cells interact or how you even know how organs interact or how people interact What I study is social science right through political science and communication is how people relay their thoughts to each other And how do they get their Goals done right and I try to figure out well This is what the academics and the irritations are saying now I go to say government or go to local government and see does it actually work out that way and it's interesting way of I think getting my education that way I've definitely learned a lot of value of especially in my field of learning by doing so you know I think there's a lot of poly-sized students political science students who Learned about elections a lot about government, but don't necessarily have the opportunity to be able to apply and say well This lesson was a bit more BS than the other lessons and maybe it doesn't work I think that's been really helpful and there's no great theoretical models I love about ideology and voting patterns and everything and then I apply it through life I'm like oh, this doesn't work at all. So it's very fun to see those Yeah, so in an introductory class about American politics they teach you about this Spatial model essentially where they say the all the people on the left ideal general people in the right ideology If a proposal comes by All the right people on the left people vote for whatever's closest to them and they'll kind of compromise and in real life politics Even I think in national government if you look at it Well, sometimes even if it's close to them and it's not quite what they want those just they know to it anyways They won't accept a compromise. Yes a lot of I think a lot of the lessons are built on this idea of compromise and like self Or you know this this rational self-actor which you see in economics law and even in political theory And it's not quite that all the time It's not quite straightforward is this one rational decision It's a lot of emotions mixed into a lot of like personal connections and I think I like that's what I like about communications It's all about personal connections and how do you talk to different people in different ways and everything so consider studying that? Yeah, I'm always interested in that. So I'm gonna promote the book I was talking about ten minutes before the show started. I'm rereading the social animal bite David Brooks the New York Times columnist and and it talks about humans is not being rational but being social and and that The kind of thing you talked about about proximity is has enormous influence on people my own lesson in 50 years is 1% 5% 25% 50% 1% pay attention to everything 5% are the soccer moms the people that hold the country the world together and have for 10,000 years They're up at 6 o'clock in the morning. They're on the phone until 10 o'clock at night They're the people that take care of the children of the world and in the middle of that they talk politics And if you can get them to talk about you then that's a big victory The 25% turn to the soccer moms and say there's an election coming Who are you voting for and the soccer moms go well? I'm voting for blah blah blah so the key to the and then 50% actually vote and the other 50% don't care at all Yep, so that's reality, but it's the 5% that holds society together so that's so How have you evolved in terms of what you're studying so I want I want you to get to where we talk about cities, so Well It's still the I think it's that practice of applying knowledge and the knowledge I'm taught and then applying it to real-life situations It's something that's we've talked about a lot off-air obviously is about cities and urban planning And that's something I found as a recent interest to me. So it's kind of made me Looking back at it regret. Oh, why didn't I do landscape architecture or do community and renews of element or you know the Urban planning type field. I was just thinking that's like a lot of where my passion is because I think within this basic foundation of Infrastructure of where people live how people get to where they need to go to work or shop You know every type of mode of just planning how people live and how interacting in urban environment really shapes all the outcomes We see you know with racial tension with poverty with homelessness all these things basically are affected to from these this This the root of the problem is basically things are probably built probably planned I live in a city that has too many freeways that are cut through all these all these neighborhoods because Someone in San Jose thought you know LA so great. We're gonna be like them and then those That was a bad idea But thankfully we've gotten as bad as them in certain aspects like with traffic and with the way things are just sprawled out over the place But we do see some of those same problems come up and if we were built smarter I think like Sacramento And where I've got to actually do some internships there with the capital like the Sacramento is built in a really nice grid pattern I think where it's very convenient to get to everywhere But it's also I think if I didn't do political science though I wouldn't have this mind of like juggling and jumping from one topic to the other so even with urban planning I'm thinking about oh, how will this affect, you know Economics in the local region right how does it affect commerce how does it affect how? Diversity issues are and how affect education right and how will it affect in the end like will people even want to live here and want to participate Right in this community, right? So I think through political science. I've been exposed to a lot of things what I'm studying I don't know if it's the same thing if I just went in I was like I'm gonna be an architect like my family and I don't know if I would be very interested in applying things for other people rather than just you know I like this building. I'm gonna go this way, you know I don't know if that that gets to it. I'm starting getting to I guess so So I just want to jump out from what you just said about an alternative to an architect Yeah, okay. I'm an old planner I'm more interested in where people are born and where they die and how they live and what they do with their time So for me the built community is something that's very diverse and and frequently doesn't work And so that then becomes the social problems now Other people so I just found out that Don Saylor's daughter is getting her PhD and in public policy at North University of North Carolina after almost getting her PhD on on how the air works So she went from being a biologist to being a social policy analyst and decided that's where her passion is Now since that's where her parents passion is that's no big surprise But the point I want to make is that there are many ways that you can affect how the social policy Translates into reality and then I just want to give you a very perverse example Sometime around 1980 somebody in Washington DC looked at the map of Davis and at that point The post office was where the Davis Enterprise is now it was on G Street and it was the center of town But we were a town. We were not a city and at that point everybody who was anybody went to the post office every day It was the place to meet you know it was the center of the city It was what farmers market has become. Yeah, it was the place where people Christ I mean everybody went to get their mail at 10 o'clock in the morning at the same time in order to a clock And I mean you saw that your community by choice Somebody in Washington DC in 1980 said Davis is going to grow. Let's move the post office to this land In Eastern Davis And when they did that they destroyed the downtown in terms of being the center of the city Now all the banks are still required by law a city law to be downtown I'm just saying these are the gutsy kind of things that I want to get into with you about What what urban challenges actually translate into? So for the rest of the show we want to talk about two things the first thing we want to talk about is the next chancellor And we'll be talking to Ralph Hexer next week The second thing I want to talk about you is the future of Davis and how the student body can be involved in that discussion And what the student involvement should be so I'll save my student comments for For that for them. I'll just say one thing here My split mind work There are three kinds of people in Davis There are the undergraduates that know you're gonna be here if you're lucky for five years and graduate Some of those people actually do that some move on some don't make it Yeah, yeah, but the point is you think I'm gonna go to college. I'm gonna fill my parents dream. I'm gonna fulfill my dream I'm gonna become an adult. I'm gonna go out in the real world. I'm gonna get a job and I'm gonna be a success Okay, those kind of people do not care about very much about Davis By definition. I was one of those people. Okay. I mean, I knew the name of the mayor big first Asmanson I thought anybody with a name that weird. It's got to be a weird town That was all and I was a local government person And but I knew how many counties there were I knew a lot about the state of California the second group of people are Grad students or people that are here for what they know is a short time These people are adults. They're 25 to 50. They may have a two-year grant But you know, they were they were in Madison, Wisconsin Then they were in Austin, Texas, then they were in Reno, Nevada, then they were in San Francisco and now they're in Davis Two months from now. They may get an offer to go to Eugene and they're up and gone again Okay, those kind of people don't care about tables the third group of people are people that think they want to live here for the rest of their lives now that's about a third of the population and The first group is 25 to 40 percent of the population of the city of Davis and they're the student body Right, yeah, and they're an integral part of who we are So ultimately that's why the students need to be involved In the conversation about the future of the city. So that was my my split so You got elected student-buddy president in February on or about the end of February All hell broke loose for Chancellor Cotay So you have only experienced the Chancellor during the turmoil and then the transition to Ralph Hector so actually so I was elected The election was in February mid-February and that stuff had been stirring with a pleasant quite as bad as We've seen it to be I took office I was you know took my oath of office and everything on March 10th And it was March 11th from the sit-ins began So that was basically the first thing I had on my plate was this whole chancellor thing I don't think any president in recent memory at least has had something quite like this It was definitely interesting to balance where my predecessor took a lot of effort to rebuild relationships with administration She was a very unique person Yes, definitely was but I think it was you know a necessary thing to do because we had become too isolated from the rest of campus And that's something I've kind of Try to carry it forward is with the faculty and with the administration to build the real relationships with it because it's You can't get anything done and you can't oppose them if you can't communicate with each other Because then you're just shouting each other from different islands It doesn't work that way very well right if you really want to make change You have to be able to say or the other person the eye and say look you're doing something wrong You need to fix it right now instead of me just going in this corner and say I think they're doing it wrong but So our predecessor took a lot of time to rebuild relationships with Administration so I was her cognizant of that when I was going in and had to balance between you know There's a lot of student frustration over what chance former Chancellor Conte had been doing and I try to balance this like well In my role should I which one should I throw into sort of thing and by? was it by Late April she had been put on suspension April 27th April 27th that's day and the day after that when Ralph Hexter became interim champs acting Acting that's sorry. He actually found time to be with me. I the night that happened I emailed him and I said well looks like you're gonna be in quite the spot And is a good luck to that and he actually found time to be with me the first day And I think that showed a lot about him that he was willing to finally take students Hopefully after all that happened students more seriously than his predecessor had and I found that to be definitely my experience with Interim Chancellor Hexter is that it's kind of night and day in a lot of respects when I was growing up in Davis You know from a freshman to basically where I am now I knew the Chancellor like most people knew of the Chancellor and a new of the office But they always felt in this kind of very remote sense because he always traveled with kind of entourage She was very hard to reach but with me at least for me personally with Hexter And I think some other student leaders have been pretty accessible And I think obviously has to do with some of the pressures from the movement to fire today He obviously but I think he in general is more willing to engage I've actually worked with him in the past when I was a senator and he was provost So we had known each other in the past. So I think that helped when we had a little bit of working relationship before but definitely he's been more Willing to engage especially with me. I think in my experience when I thought it was a norm I think this is what chances are supposed to be they're kind of like aloof a little bit. They kind of know what's happening But Ralph Hexter has been pretty knowledge about most things to my surprise most of the times So one big thing that's been on my docket, especially with the city community and and with the campus is housing for students Because as our population grows so unnaturally and exponentially Natural growth of a city even if Davis has grown naturally cannot keep up, you know with that kind of pace, right? so I'm very concerned about the future of Students there freshman now and the freshman four years after them or even my brother when hopefully he comes to Davis Who's eight years younger than me? Hopefully he'll be able to find housing that's easy to find and affordable, right? I don't want people paying the same kind of rates. They're an arm and leg at Santa Barbara or LA or Berkeley I said Berkeley already or you know, but I don't want us to become like them where I feel like we have the opportunity to address Those problems early on before we hit the crisis button and say we got to something now before and I'm trying to say like we We could have done it right now, you know We can stop the the sinking ship now and a lot of that I think I think I've been bringing up to chance or consistently every time I meet with him I'm saying like this is a number one issue in the long term and the short term you need to like address it now He's willing to engage with it He definitely has taken it pretty seriously and has been thinking about it a lot and that we've constantly had conversations about it I think that's definitely a step up from Chancellor former Chancellor Catehi where when I would say something I feel like I was off in a wall sometimes I would just say an idea and They just the engagement is different, you know when you talk to someone and they're just kind of like You know, they're polite listening or versus they really engage with you're saying, you know, and it's like It just felt different a lot and I was saying and I just felt wow, you know Chancers can be different I started talking to the other presidents in the system like, you know, how is your your chancellor like and you know They have funny stories about their chancellor and stuff and I was pretty interesting I didn't even know it could be like this because when I was a senator or when I was a freshman or second year I thought, you know, only special people can ever talk to the chancellor but now I think especially coming in with a new chancellor it you can't have someone who has this kind of like Regalness to them, you know, almost like when you go up to chance to get about twice or something you can't have that I think and Hearing stories about Chancellor Vanderhoof back in the day just how embedded in the community he was I think we need that in the new in a new chancellor and something. I've been really pressing with UCOP uses it UC office the president who oversees all UC systems and with The faculty through the academic Senate students even and administration is we need to think about and I'm sorry This might be a little ingrained in the UC politics, but We need to think about in the UC. There's this idea of shared governance. So it's been sharing between formally It's between the faculty and administration. So they make decisions together. They share the governance of the system, right? But formally students undergrads and and graduate students aren't in this system I've tried to iterate for the multiple times saying, you know, we need to be the third branch, right? Basically, we need to balance each other because if faculty aren't getting it with admin admin aren't getting where faculty It's always this dead-end lock, right? If they never agree. They just knock heads all time and I'm saying well There's this third group that is intrinsically Intrinsically Okay, Jim. Yeah, you're talking about the reason why the institution exists Yeah, basically between I and I said this act makes the reason the integral essential reason the university exists is between the students and The faculty right the people mentor relationship and if you're discounting the people part of it was that's the point, you know Because we are just as interested in the way This university's ran just as much as faculty just as an admin are right just that the administration are paid to Constantly run it the faculty share in it because they have an interest in it too But we're the ones paying the tuition paying the fees and we're the ones coming here willingly right and en masse So we have a big stake in it and as you're saying there are tons of people that come here just for the degree, right? But it's my I think responsibility and other student leaders to say like this experience Even if you choose willingly not to engage in shared governance in your city or in your university It's my responsibility no matter what to say you get the best experience you can right it to say like when the freshman here Shouldn't have to suffer this issue that I had I wanted to fix it. It's the same thing where if you know Your kids or your kids and their kids come it should be better than it was before I don't want it to be Worst off right? That's a the whole point trying to be in leadership and government You don't want I don't want it so that when my brother comes here He will have everything ten times worse He doesn't he'll have you know 500 person lecture hall for in the most basic class where he can't ask a question Because he doesn't feel comfortable raising his hand almost 500 people. I don't want him not to be able to graduate in five years because Tutoring wasn't available or because he couldn't even get the classes he wanted I don't want him to have to commute from say woodland or West Sacramento because there was no housing Davis at all That's the things I want to try to fix or try to move the dialogue. I know realistically and in my term I can't fix everything but it'd be a nice to say, you know, I've met some really great community people I've met some really great administrators and faculty who are on board with this I can carry it this ideology with them You know in the end it's ideas that drive the world right if these people who are here can carry on that the idea They carry the torch with it and they'll make decisions based on the ideology, right? And hopefully so my my goal is to keep shouting it very much at them and say until they believe in it You know, that's kind of my approach so far So I guess the first thing I want to say is that Chancellor Vanderhoof was here a long time. He came in 85 and He was named interim in 93 and then The one point is the year before 93 we did the phase three budget cuts and UCD unlike every other UC campus UCD went all the way down to the graduate student level and said we're gonna cut 10% of the budget Where should we cut at UCLA? They went to the department head level at Berkeley They went they didn't go down to the faculty let alone the grad students So his executive vice chancellor Vanderhoof once a month went to the Regents and then on Friday he went to the main theater or free-worn hall and the room was full And he said this is what happened at the regents meeting yesterday And it was better than reading the San Francisco Chronicle or the Chronicle of higher education You could find out what the regents were really doing when major budget cuts were happening throughout the UC system And so during that year Chancellor van at that point provost Vanderhoof was meeting regularly with the whole public and got vetted So when the transition was made to huller there was no question about who was leading the campus At that point Vanderhoof was leading the campus The question now is to what extent is Hector Tainted by the fact that he's been associated with Katie. He came here six months before the Pepper spray and the pepper spray really defined her administration But I just want to make the point to say when I had my first meeting with Ralph Hector Which was in May before the pepper spray The students had marched to the chancellor's office and she was so upset about that that the fifth floor was in lockdown There was no way you could get into the floor unless you had an appointment and that was six months before the pepper spray So she was draconian in her administrative style Now that's a contrast between her and Vanderhoof Vanderhoof was very friendly the last four years after he got the money from undavi So then the Larry Vanderhoof we remember is that guy who was somebody that you could sit and he'd listen to what you had to say Chancellor could tell you was very impatient. She was very ambitious. She was very driven so We may have benefited from that. I'm I'm certain that there are problems If Ralph Hector has taken off the list, what are your criteria for who the channel what the chancellor should be like? Yeah, and this is definitely on the minds of many students and I'm working with the student Committee members on the selection committee of not only Davis, but Berkeley as well because their president is actually on the committee And I talk with him every now and then about this someone definitely who I Think understand the student experience who can really relate to it not just someone who can say, you know I'll listen to students because it's something very different about Understanding the experience and of course, you know empathizing with experience to in the way you govern, you know In the way you make decisions in the way you process decisions and process the ration but I think a very important thing is they have to do this knowing that Modern education the my modern higher education is like what it is now where the state isn't contributing the kinds of funds It has in the past where people aren't paying the easy tuition that a lot of generations in the past I think benefited from where it was, you know, they you know all these stories about saying like $50 of $50 a quarter whatever I paid that much for for for tuition or You know where the cost of living is much higher the pressure to get your degree and the pressure of society where you know kids like me Or students like me should say I'm not kidding more students like me have to Basically go to college because that's the social expectation now, you know and even the marketplace expectation, right? You can't just go out in high school degree and get a job that way you have to do all these BS BAs grad school even before you can have something competitive and survive in this economy, you know It's really, you know, very very competitive economy in the global economy, too So there's all those pressures about from the student perspective But it's like can you really support us here when we have all those pressures? Finances social expectations and Education so harder to it than it ever was too and that a chancellor really has to think about that right as one very important piece Of your constituency and I understand that chancellor also has to balance, you know The faculty the staff everyone else as well and that's I think very valid But they have to put the student experience as top priority I think because in the end if no students are coming and everyone's having a terrible time What is the point of this university, right? The faculty are just here to do research I guess now or here to just teach people who are just miserable and not getting anything out of it And it's not really education more right. It's just this this cyclical degree mill, which is not industrial education Yeah, you don't want factories. No, we're just mass producing diplomas And that's definitely something I want to avoid right and we're kind of Starting to see that a little bit right where people have to do things because they have to right and there are those people Definitely who come here a couple years and say I need this class. I need this degree so I can go to med school I can go to law school right and that's their goal and that's what it's very valid It's very valid though, right But while they're here is their life being enriched by it in any sense or is this just okay? We're doing the bare minimum for students so we can skirt by right But it's like at the same time with budget cuts and with these new pressures They have to understand how to prioritize as well right so you can't be putting on I Thinks that are unnecessary expenditures or thinking about Higher education in an older sense saying well it used to be like this back in the day So why can't we just keep doing this right? It's not that anymore You have to be adaptive you have to be innovative and you have to know that students are more diverse more metropolis and and Face enormously different pressures than they ever have in the past And it's only gonna get I think worse as it goes and they have to be good leaders of that certainly more complex Yes, certainly more complex more complicated. Yeah more more. I mean there The whole point of learning is to discover how to work your way through things So, you know one of the great dilemmas that your generation had that my generation invented Of which there were many Many problems we invented one of them is hacking So what a hack is is you create a barrier within a computer program Right, and then you figure out a way to get through the hack And that's what a hacker is so the the that's what learning is as you come to a challenge You come to something you can't understand and you talk to other people you experiment. Yeah, that's what learning is Is that I hackers? So, you know my joke is if you want to know how to get a child protected device to work Give it to a child Yeah They'll figure it because because they're impatient. They're curious That's that's just what our minds are. Yeah, I mean The the creative outlet by the time you graduate you should know what your major should have been It's the beginning of your education not the end of your you know It's the it's the dream that your parents had it is it is the accomplishment for 200 years and Matt You're an adult Yeah, man, you can be addressed as mister and you can teach in the school. That's what a bachelor's do I'm literally a bachelor's they don't call it a bachelor at degree. Thank goodness Okay back to reality other things about the chancellor how much is biology do you think important how much is I'm sorry so My bio 60% of the faculty 60% of the research and 60% of the undergraduates say UC Davis or biological science majors How important is it that the Chancellor be a biologist? I Don't necessarily think they have to come from a certain field to be a good Chancellor I just think they have to be Good with people skills. I think I think we've seen in the past where very staunch academics come into governing positions like I think with the former president you'd off Which was kind of infamously not such a great mix of leadership governing and then his style I don't think they necessarily have to have it but a background in bio in biological sciences I think or stem major even could be beneficial I say could be because we previously had someone who was in stem right background in faculty and research and everything I don't think it necessarily translated to a better understanding of students and their experience and making their experience better I don't think it necessarily did But if someone could use the own leverage of someone I think like even interim provost right now Kimbertus is right. We used to be dean of biology. He's perfect example of somebody for a number two Yeah, I think I'm glad you brought him up. I was going to I actually got to meet him I think before I became president We had a great conversation because he was planning a 20-20 initiative right and when right wasn't completely thrown a wrench with right enrollment plan and he's just telling me about How the plans are and then we and he said he had a lot issues or a lot of Concerned about international students and their their well-being because if they're being grown this way And they're still getting slap a triple tuition How are they gonna get the resources they need and then we also brought up traffic concerns and like a transportation concern and saying how you know The transportation authority will say their X amount of parking spots on campus But they don't really factor in that you know half of them aren't really used and there's this parking situation because a lot of students are now Preferring to drive because of their backgrounds everything and then he thought about that more you actually had to follow up conversations And we had some very pleasantly surprised out of that conversation that people have those I've had two really wonderful conversations with Kimbertus they acting prova and and what Ken said was it would what he was doing before was he was supporting Ralph Hexter when Ralph was the provost house his advisor on Biological science issues, so To me Ken is doing a great job of being the number two I think that the skills that Ralph Hexter brings are mostly that because he's a comparative literature junkie He actually cares about the language that individual scientists use and so maybe a biologist and a Chemist or a biologist and a physicist might sit down and not be willing to hear each other And he can hear them both enough that he can get to them Communicate it. I think that's actually his strongest skill as an administrator But he is very warm and open and and approachable in ways that Chancellor Cotay was the ice queen, so You know the the the other comment I want to make though is On the outside chance somebody doesn't know what stem means It's science technology engineering and mathematics and I made the point that she will Would claim biology students as being stem students when she's talking about the numbers Right, but she doesn't include biology when she means stem that she was an electrical engineer She wasn't even a civil if she'd been a mechanical engineer She would have had to deal with natural things a lot more if she'd been a civil engineer She would have had to deal with the real world, but she was an electrical engineer specializing in antennas Ralph specializes the last I heard on Virgil The Latin scholars so he brings a different perspective. Yeah, I Would hope that That if we get a new person and somebody that has a lot of previous experience with biological science stuff I Did have a hand in getting the vice-chancellor for research Reappointed when it was Barry Klein who was a physicist and he didn't understand biology and I said I think that the vice-chancellor for research at the ag campus of the University of California should know what a mitochondria is And so I was going around to the vice-chancellors and the dean saying do you know what a mitochondria is and it was shocking how many of them did not and The the secret is they're they create oxygen they do all the work inside yourself. So this The surgeon in the vet department said it's the lungs of this cell It's what does all the work so it converts stuff so that you have energy. It's really important We need to know biology that people in the administration are making decisions If they're not if they're not conversing in the science, right? They're not going to make good decision so What's your view of the future of the campus Future of the campus. I have focused a lot As president under the circumstances of increased enrollment where we have we're looking at you know Thousands of new students within just the next couple years. I mean, I always knew Population growth was going to be a thing. It's just that I think with this impetus of a lot of new students coming at once It was more pressure to say talk to admin and faculty. We need to make changes now not like keep waiting so I've thought I've talked a lot about to students and to faculty and to admin about how we need to improve our Academics the academic experience for students. So like I mentioned about wait lists. I've got you know friends who Who is still on the wait list of classes took the midterm for it just because they're like, well I might I might be in it or not. So and you know, these are hundred people lectures or several hundred people lectures that people are Crammed into and I and it's still very ridiculous where the students and friends I have who take classes at the Madavi Center who take classes in the area activities of recreation center Which is like the gym essentially, right where we have to do these these stopgap measures And really I don't want this to keep happening right and to say look you need to make plans to build student housing It's an infrastructure with transport classrooms and student support like now because it will not even if they we all committed to doing this Tonight it would take another three years four three four years. Yeah It would take them that long to start digging Exactly it would take them forever to do it again, right now They're building a new lecture hall just off of California And that's gonna be finished out of it, you know the next year or two and that's gonna be a big big classroom Seater, but still it's time and it's time that students don't have like with the current renovations some renovations I've been going on for two years almost there's generations of students who didn't know that I'm still going Going to school with that didn't know it was like before and I don't want a whole four-year generation to go Well, I know there's construction happening there, but like I don't ever knew what it was right a lot of students I don't even know what freeborn used to be. I was one of the last class of students I got to see it all functional and then they just close it I don't want students to not be able to live in Davis anymore where they can't find it anymore because the vacancy rate Is so low even it's lower than compared to Sacramento region and that's a whole city area And it's pretty ridiculous to me and the average rent is higher It's my higher by far than even Sacramento. So when I'm thinking about my future career I'm like, well, why stay in Davis? I should as well save money and live where I work, right? It's a really nice place to live obviously and a lot of people I think want to live in the city I want to have their own house or apartment. They don't want to live in a University kind of apartment type thing or a city dorm. I mean, I'm sorry university dorm thing Even if they were available right now, but the problem is they aren't even available So we don't even have the options and what I want to expand is especially in housing is the options for students whether they want to be able to live in In Davis the city or on UC Davis the campus I want them to have the option to shop around You know, it shouldn't be where I have to go live in this place or I have to go live in this place They should be able to competitively shop, right? Just as I think any normal person should be able to when they decide where to live, but I think the future Davis Really is dependent on this Chancellor We have a lot of vacancies in the higher leadership with our CFO being gone All these deans and people that are all gone and they're all vacant, right? There's a lot of interim XYZ positions right now So whoever comes in has a lot of sway and saying, you know, this is the direction we're going in We got to do a full throttle right now And I think whoever does it has to have a sense of urgency Especially in the student experience of saying, you know, this is a problem. We cannot let students Continue to have this kind of experience. I read in a report where I think Compared to other UCs, we have the lowest for your graduation rate and that's a shame. Yeah One of the lowest I think it's something like about one and two graduate within that time I think I saw a 55% About half because a lot of students that I know are taking either after your your your normal four years You take either, you know another quarter or another year So fifth years are pretty common now and that's why even colloquially people say in the for the next four or five Years at Davis, you know, it's seeped into the culture Yeah, which is a which is a shame when you come to come to Davis UC Davis as a student You're like, I'm the class of well for me. I'm the class of 2017, but I'm leaving in 2018 Yeah, you know or 2017 if you graduate in the fall, so it's still 2017 But you know the idea was that the promise you came in was the idea you would graduate in the summer unless you really wanted to stay right you shouldn't Students have shouldn't have to say an extra year because they had to because their class wasn't offered They couldn't get into the class. They didn't have the support services to be able to pass that class They needed and in my case some of my classes are scheduled on top of each other So I couldn't I have to wait, you know, so I have to be the way I couldn't graduate earlier than I wanted to Or you know all these types of instances that happen, especially when there's like mapped out majors and Studies that people have like engineering where you basically have the next four years mapped out free for classes But if you mess up once you're in you're in dire trouble, right? Yeah, you're behind and it's a shame when people have to say Extra than that if they don't want to because that's another you know a couple grand you're dropping and it's a shame that your life Yeah, exactly if you're dropping that much is with student loans and with just support from whatever service from whatever sources You have just to take one thing because you you should have had the ability to I think is It's terrible terrible and there's a lot of issues I think among students about issues of access to education and equality education right now Just because of the impact right now. There's a big issue that I tried to work on that happened last year where Do you take any AP courses right now or anything? I took a lot of AP courses last year Yeah, did you you only did you have the IB classes too or anything? No, okay I only had AP. Well, he's good too. I took AP too. So when I came in I had 40 issh units of AP, right? and that got me ahead in the line of registration the Academic Senate felt that it was not fair and I kind of see what their point is right It wasn't fair that people could jump the line because of Akas to AP because not all schools. Yeah, that's true So now all schools don't have them out But you still put in a lot of money and a lot of hard work to do it, right? But you now if you go to UC Davis, you don't really gain anything except you're being pushed towards a unicap faster Because it's not the only benefit for those AP classes left is that you are a null intake class So if you took AP psychology, I didn't take AP say which one do you think? I took AP complete AP a lot of a lot of it. Yeah, a lot of them AP statistics AP physics, so if you took like AP statistics, yes Then the low the lowest statistics class you were like basically saying you don't have to take it anymore And that's it, right? But there's a lot of things if you didn't go into major with English or something that didn't really matter to you, right? Yeah, I found that it didn't know a lot of my AP classes didn't really count for much Yeah, so they didn't count that much, right? So then When so now with those loads you just pushed so some people who worked really hard in high school You know because they also had a fortunate background to be able to take AP or IB classes or now You're just a unit's closer to cap and that's even worse because UC Davis kicks you out when you have that cap limit now So I tried to think outside the box and say well Is there a fair way to still give credit to people and try to get time to degree? So I've been working with academic Senate to try to say how about give them GE credit for that because GE's are the place that general education Is where class are impacting it's where people take electives But it's like if I hadn't had to do like an arts and humanities thing I could graduate faster or if I hadn't had to do this is just one-way brainstorming this, right? But if people didn't have any conflict or felt unfair that people hey that guy's a hit of me in line Because but no one would care if all your classes were available So if I was last in line and I still got all my classes because there was plenty of space or reasonable space Right, and it could still take whatever I wanted no one would be mad at each other for this so a lot of these issues I think come from scarcity right and Scarcity has worse as there's more people demanding things same for housing same for education, you know Sorry, just talk for a long time. No, that's what you're here for a brother, you know, so I Think we've talked about the Chancellor enough So how can students be more engaged in sitting in with the Chancellor and with the suffix in general anything? Answer your own question. I would I would say Special the Chancellor search we had a great up Showing in the last engagement efforts we had so the first Chancellor Town Hall we had I think that was the official week one of UC Davis We had You know like 40 50 people show up to that town hall and it was still the middle classes and everything people Came out and voiced their opinions about you know, this process isn't the most transparent It doesn't engage the most students and we're gonna try to fix that right and student leadership now is thinking about ways to do it You know It's a shame that we have to now as students on top of our course load and top of everything else We have also think about how to change entire structure system. That's in the end. I guess what we signed up to do But also just and then with the survey that got sent out We had over 350 Undergrads reply and they all had very thoughtful response Most of my very thoughtful response some of them are pretty long too about hundred two hundred Grads also replied. So that's very proportional to our population I think in terms of engagement, but really there needs to be more awareness, right? So I'm very happy to go on shows and talk to the media and stuff about all the issues that are happening because I think a lot of times the media Doesn't look at the super perspective enough. They'll go because it's easy to say this is dr. Blah blah blah He's an expert in whatever right or this is your administrator And they can try to talk about and they can be a good source But there's not enough attention to the student angle I think and one thing that really contributed to the downfall of today was all that pressure from external, right? And if that wasn't there, I would seriously doubt that We would have the success we had because with it was a real help I think with especially on Dirks or Chancellor Berkeley and on today he when there's the LA Times and the sac be and everyone On state Legislature's drawing fire on them. It really helps right helps have an ally outside, right? You don't think the students would have been able to do it on their own I think it would definitely have been much much harder right without that kind of sustained attention because it reciprocates, right? When you've got sac media attention students see that more too and then they're like, okay What are what's happening? You know versus people who are literally sleeping during finals on the fifth floor morack Posting social media can only reach so far, right? But when you combine that with say legislatures saying something combine that with Media attention, then you really get a combined awareness of it, right? And really more people are invested in this and that's what this I think is a shame right now with the Chancellor's search is there's been less engagement now There's just been less Attention from sac be from even local sources. I mean there's been every now and then the article But I think we need to sustain that students, right? And we need to keep the dialogue going because we don't Do want it to be forgotten, right? And we are all busy as students, right? We and I understand it's faculty too, but we need to find time to think about these things and really engage in it Because if we let it slip on our radar, right? Things can happen and that's why we need that kind of attention to it So I really wish it wasn't all about the cateche drama that sec. He was interested in I'm talking about sec VLock because they're a local regional newspaper But it's to be fair about other papers and publications too But if they just focus more about systemic problem of chancellorships in general I heard very it wasn't until like Dirk Scott Resigned so Dirk is why is the Chancellor of Berkeley? Yes. He was the Chancellor of Berkeley. Maybe technically still is I don't think so. I don't know if he's resigned yet, but yes. I mean effectively he yeah, he effectively So he was the Chancellor of Berkeley, but until That happened to the Chancellor of Berkeley. They weren't even talking about this is a chancellory type problem this was a cateche only problem, which I think was A serious misstep because now a lot of the campus constituency students Undergrads grads and faculty are more concerned about the office of the Chancellor and what those powers are and what the Responsibility is rather than oh, it's a cateche drama, you know, like it was very important to highlight that kind of stuff and what not to do And also think about like what the role of Chancellor is but that position is more important than the person Right, and I think that's what the media kind of misses because it's not drama in a sense that right It's boring. It's boring. It's more boring. I would say it's not as hot and gossipy But it's still just important. I think and there are stakes are just as high I think you know when you replace one unfavorable person in power you it's you know We've seen this in history all the time, right? It's just as important who comes next So I want to thank you for being on our show We didn't let zoe talk very much because she got to talk whenever she wanted to and she was the center of attention the whole time So thank you so When I was a student and was 19 James Simon cunnan was one of the leaders of the student revolt at columbia university And he wrote a book called the strawberry statement and in the strawberry statement, which I have a copy of He said don't trust anybody over 30. Well, he was 19 and I was 19. I'm 68. That means if he's still alive He's 68 and I hope he trusts himself so Us baby boomers have learned a lot, but We're still in the same crisis as we were in in the 60s So the same challenges that we had you have in terms of communicating with the administration Next week our guest is going to be ralph hexer. He is now the interim chancellor at uc davis He's in the middle of this election process. We're going to give him a chance to tell his story This is what's going on. Thanks for being with us. Good evening