Dear Friends,
In the year I have served as Student Advocate General, the Office of the Student Advocate (OSA) has worked as a team to provide more support to UCSB students than ever before. This year the office assisted three times the number of students in conflict with the university than in any previous year and was also more successful in assisting students with appeals and advocating on their behalf at judicial hearings.
This year, a plan to reduce the number of OSA Caseworkers while increasing the number of cases handled was implemented and was highly successful. This change allowed the office to voluntarily reduce its budget and become more efficient and accountable.
Many students were referred to us by previous clients and we believe this reflects the high quality of work that occurred in the office everyday. In addition to increasing our casework, we also updated our website to include new information for students about how our office functions and what we can assist with. This year, emphasis was placed on connecting clients with other resources on campus in order to maximize their chances of success in handling conflicts with the university.
I am incredibly proud of the progress made in the office this year and I thank the ambitious, highly dedicated team that made such progress possible: Sergei Garrison, Michael Khourie, Justin Galle, Dyne Suh, Alex Paramo, Adam Cook, and Alex Stern.
Sincerely,
Beau F. Shaw
Student Advocate General
Associated Students
UC Santa Barbara