VALLEY COLLEGE : Student Trustee Gathers Opinions

As the state’s financial doors closed on community colleges last month, Erica Hauck plunged into her new role as the student member of the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees.

Taking messages of anger, frustration and anxiety of 120,000 students with her, Hauck traveled to Sacramento to implore legislators not to turn their backs on education.

As student trustee, Hauck’s main role is to gather the overall sentiments of the students on the district’s nine campuses and relate them to the seven-member board.

But during a crisis such as the budget impasse, she went directly to the state.

“A lot of assemblymen said they don’t hear enough from us and a lot of them were happy to see a student up there,” Hauck said.

Hauck was elected as the representative of the district’s students on the board in May after serving for a year as student body president at Valley College, where she juggles 12 units each semester.

“For the past few weeks, I’ve been attending committee and board meetings, student rallies, trying to go to class and once in a while I get into my bed and go to sleep,” she said.

Hauck said she is pleased with the open reception she has received so far from students, faculty and state legislators.

She said she worries about the future of community colleges, but was encouraged by the mobility of students in organizing rallies against Gov. Pete Wilson’s budget proposals.

“The Legislature knows we don’t vote,” Hauck said. “They know we’re apathetic and a minority at the polls. If students had organized themselves and not voted for Wilson, the number of student votes alone wouldn’t have kept him out of office.”

But she said she fears that by the time Wilson seeks reelection, people will have forgotten the gravity of the budget situation. “We can’t forget what happened,” Hauck said. “We need proper representation. We need people that will make higher education a priority.”

In addition to her role as student representative on the board, Hauck is allowed to second motions during board meetings--something she appreciates because it gives her the ability to take action, she said.

“It’s hard for students to take action because the means aren’t available to them,” Hauck said.

She is not permitted to vote or to make motions.

As student trustee, she also chairs the district’s student affairs committee, which consists of the nine campus presidents.