Richard Zierer

Hey UCSB!

My name is Richard Zierer. I am a fourth-year political science and English student, and I am thrilled to become your next External Vice President for Statewide Affairs!

In my three and a half years at UCSB, I've appreciated taking part in many of the great opportunities our school has to offer: great professors, courses, and extracurricular activities.

But I've become appalled by the way the UC system takes advantage of us. They demand further tuition increases from us to finance the opulent salaries they pay for administrator positions, many of which are redundant. I decided to run because I want to work with my friends in AS at UCSB with my fellow EVPs from other UCs to advocate for us in Sacramento and to the UC Board of Regents.

UC admin staff has skyrocketed in recent years, along with tuition and the total number of UC students. But the number of professors has flatlined. We are paying more money for a lower quality of education. I want the opportunity to tell Janet Napolitano and the Board of Regents that enough is enough, and UC students are tired of footing the bill for office redecorations and an increasing list of redundant or unnecessary staff positions.

I also want to take on scholarship displacement. It isn’t right to punish success by revoking financial aid for those who have won third party scholarships. This essentially penalizes students for obtaining outside scholarships, and I find this practice abhorrent. If elected, I will make this issue one of my top priorities.

During my limited time as your EVPSA, I do not want to get bogged down in factional infighting or partisan disputes. I believe that by reaching out to all my fellow Gauchos both in and outside of AS, I can make the most of my time as EVPSA to work on tackling issues that matter to all of us. If I am elected, I look forward to working with everyone who shares my goal of making meaningful, lasting change on behalf of all our fellow Gauchos.

In conclusion, I’m really just trying to do what I think is right. I'm graduating in the Spring. I'm not an AS insider. I don't need this job. But I'm doing this because I want to be a voice for myself and all my fellow UCSB students who are tired of being strangled by debt to finance superfluous UC bureaucracy. Make sure to vote Richard Zierer on Gold starting on January 24!