Introduction

A.S. funds and produces numerous events both on and off campus. The events listed here are intended to give an overview of the kinds of events students support.

Pardall Carnival

Sponsored by the Community Affairs Board and the IV Community Relations Committee, the Pardall Carnival begins the year by reaching out to the Isla Vista community, including  the many families who live there.

Mini carnival rides and a variety of games make for a fun family friendly day. Students organizations also set up tables to let people know about the many resources students bring to the community.

Earth Day

Each year the Environmental Affairs Board (EAB) brings Earth Day festivities to Isla Vista.

The day is filled with music, dance and booths to provide information about various organizations and services that support sustainability and responsible environmental stewardship.

Take Back the Night Rally and March

Take Back the Night is an international movement dedicated to raising awareness about sexual assault and violence against women. Each year students working through A.S. plan a day of events, which includes an on campus rally and a march through Isla Vista. There are also a variety of performances in Anisq “Oyo” Park, to help students talk about sexual violence and share their own experiences in a safe space.

KCSB Town Halls

As part of its 50 Year Anniversary celebrations, KCSB’s News and Public Affairs Department presented two town hall events. The first, at the Santa Barbara Public Library Central Branch’s Faulkner Gallery, focused on the nearby Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in San Luis Obispo, which has faced new scrutiny due to the Fukushima plant disaster in Japan. Two expert panelists presented information that preceded a community dialogue, all of which was eventually aired later that same quarter.

The second meeting, produced in conjunction with La Casa de la Raza Cesar E. Chavez Center, focused on the “Impact of Deportation and Immigration Policies in Our Community.” It featured a panel that included a Santa Barbara Immigration Attorney, Arnold Jaffe, Nayra Pacheco, a member of the UCSB IDEAS organization (“Improving Dreams Equality Access and Success”), and Noemi Duran, a member of the UCSB organizing committee for California Opportunity and Prosperity Act (COPA).

Port Huron at 50 Conference

A.S. was a sponsor of the Port Huron Statement at 50 conference, which was co-sponsored by Dissent, The Nation, the Dick Flacks Democracy Fund, the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy, and the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center’s Public Goods series.

The keynote speakers were Michael Kazin (History, Georgetown University) and Tom Hayden (principal author of the Port Huron Statement, political activist and former California State Senator and Assembly member)

A.S. President Harrison Weber also addressed the Corwin Pavilion audience.

The 1962 Port Huron Statement was the most important manifesto of the early New Left. The conference brought together a wide range of scholars and Port Huron veterans and generated a conversation that evaluated what is living, dead, and irrelevant in a document that has become a flashpoint for debates over the legacy of “The Sixties.” The idea of “participatory democracy” first popularized in the statement, was among the key ideas and practices to face a twenty-first century reevaluation. Likewise, the dialectical relationship between liberalism and its presumptively radical antagonists remains a subject of much contestation, then and now.

The conference schedule can be found at: http://www.history.ucsb.edu/projects/labor/porthuron50-schedule.html

Program Board Films

Program Board brought weekly films to the IV Theater. The films ranged from comedy to fantasy and were generally well attended.