On Oct. 22, Bakersfield College was set to be the grounds for a media event of an organization called California Public Interest Research Group, but failure to follow facility guidelines stopped the event from being held on campus.
“CalPIRG was never given permission to use our campus for their announcement,” said Amber Chiang, director of Media Relations at BC. “They didn’t follow facility or state guidelines to ensure a place on our campus.”
CalPIRG is a grassroots organization that supports several different types of issues throughout the state of California and has a presence on UC campuses.
However, according to Sujatha Jahagirdar, political director of CalPIRG student chapters, that’s about to change.
“There is a huge number of students on community college campuses,” said Jahagirdar. “These 100,000 plus students are who we need to get to first before the university campuses because these are the students on the front lines of college education.”
Because of those numbers, CalPIRG wants to make the move toward setting up student groups on each of California’s 110 campuses. Toward that end, surveys were sent to 2,679 students last semester over 19 community college campuses asking them to rate their college education versus mandatory work schedules.
According to a report that was issued as a result of those surveys, less than 25 percent of students stated they were successfully balancing work and class schedules. CalPIRG hopes to change that statistic by lobbying for less work hours for college students and supporting increased financial aid.
If allowed to form a group on campus, CalPIRG student representatives would raise funds for their lobbying efforts in the form of increased student fees. Cliff Whitlock of CalPIRG stated the increased student fees would be strictly voluntary.
“We hold pledge drives every quarter or every semester for those on the semester system,” said Whitlock. “The students who say they’d support our organization for an additional $5 fee are the ones who will see that fee on their account statements. No other students would see it. It’s purely an individual opt-in charge, not opt-out.”
According to a press release issued by CalPIRG on the day of the planned event, SGA President Kristi Newsom stated she supported CalPIRG’s drive to increase financial aid to students.
“California needs graduates to drive our economic recovery,” said Newsom. “The community colleges educate six out of every 10 college students in this state. We can’t afford for community college students not to succeed.”