Associated Students Senator Dan Siddiqui was chosen to represent the undergraduate student body on a consulting committee to pick UCSB’s new chancellor after Henry T. Yang steps down at the end of this year. 

In light of Chancellor Henry T. Yang’s departure, a committee of UC Santa Barbara representatives is being formed to pick a new chancellor. The committee has one undergraduate to represent and voice the concerns of 23,000 undergraduate students —  third-year political science and philosophy double major and Associated Students Off-Campus Senator Dan Siddiqui.

The search for a new UCSB chancellor begins this quarter. A.S. Off-campus senator and first president pro-tempore will be the only undergraduate student representative to serve on a committee to pick the new chancellor. Nina Timofeveya / Daily Nexus

According to Regents policy 7102, a search advisory committee will be made up of the UC president, the chair of the board, five regents appointed by the chair of the board, a graduate student, an undergraduate student, an alumni representative, a staff employee and a Foundation representative. The undergraduate student is appointed by the campus student association. UCSB has had five chancellors in its 80-year history as part of the University of California (UC) system. 

Yang, who has held his position since 1994 for 30 years, announced on Aug. 15 that he will be departing at the end of the school year and will continue at UCSB as a professor and researcher. Yang is the fifth chancellor of UCSB and held the position for longer than any other UC chancellor. As Yang prepares to step-down, UCSB is searching for a new chancellor.

Siddiqui was nominated to be the undergraduate student representative by Associated Students (A.S.) President Nayali Broadway. Broadway said she was asked to be on the committee in an initial email from UC President Michael V. Drake, but couldn’t commit since she was unable to make one of the meeting dates. 

She asked Siddiqui because he expressed interest as soon as he heard the news of Yang stepping down. 

Broadway said Siddiqui is qualified to do this work as the Senate’s first pro tempore, “but there weren’t any specific qualifications that [the University of California Office of the President] was looking for.”

In the last committee to pick the chancellor 32 years ago, current executive director of A.S. Marisela Márquez represented the graduate student body, when she was pursuing her doctorate degree in political science at UCSB. Now, the chosen undergraduate student representative, Siddiqui, reports to her on the student senate.

Siddiqui has been in A.S. since his sophomore year in 2023, when he was a Pearman fellow for the External Vice President of Statewide Affairs Office, then its internal head staff from 2023-24. Last year he was the co-chair of the Commission on Disability Equity. He was also the appointed officer for Campus Climate in the UC Student Association from 2023-24. 

When Siddiqui ran for off-campus senator at the end of spring quarter, he expressed that A.S. was “unnecessarily bureaucratic, inefficient and [had] excluded marginalized communities for too long.”

His platform included expanding basic needs resources, holding A.S. accountable for “its mistreatment” of Boards, Committees and Units, increasing accessibility on campus for disabled students, centering restorative justice in student conduct policies and demanding that the campus divest from war and invest in marginalized communities.

After stepping into his position in spring, two weeks into his term, Siddiqui introduced a senate bill that would effectively divest A.S. funds from companies invested in war, particularly companies with ties to Israel. The bill passed, however, two months later, Broadway announced that a UC Board of Regents policy halted its implementation.  The A.S. Internal Vice President Office is currently exploring other avenues of divestment.

“I am so much more than just the person who wrote the ethical spending bill and pro temp,” Siddiqui said. “I’m a human being. I’m someone who’s had trouble, you know, finding a therapist through health insurance that I pay for with the school.” 

Siddiqui said his initiatives are tied to his own personal experiences as well as experiences of his friends.

“I have friends who are experiencing housing insecurity on campus. I have friends who are experiencing food and basic needs and security on campus. And there are so many important issues, whether it comes to availability of housing or basic needs or improving accessibility on campus that I have fought for in the past and will continue to fight for,” he continued.

He feels his time in student government has prepared him to represent the undergraduate student body. As the representative, Siddiqui wants to emphasize appointing a chancellor that is invested in addressing UCSB’s housing issues.

“The number one biggest issue that we have is the housing crisis, and it’s caused by over enrollment and the campus just refusing to build more housing in a timely manner,” Siddiqui said.

UCSB was sued in 2024 by Santa Barbara County for being out of compliance with its agreement to produce more student housing in line with its student population. The lawsuit was settled in March, and the University must allocate $6 million to new housing. 

UCSB’s Munger Hall, a $600 million dollar housing project that would have added 3,500 student beds to campus, would have met the University’s Long Range Development Plan to add 5,000 student beds by 2025.

The project was scrapped in 2023 after controversy over its windowless design, along with the passing of its primary benefactor, Charles Munger, in November of that year. San Benito will be built at the same location, adding 2,100 beds in 2027. 

Since the UC Board of Regents will have the final say on who the chancellor will be, Siddiqui sees his role on the committee as “harm reduction.”

“UCSB is not going to get the chancellor that they deserve, especially for undergraduate students, because it’s just the reality of the Regents that we’re governed by. But, in an ideal world, I think something that I want from our chancellor is someone who obviously listens to students, someone who is willing in engaging in dialogue with students,” Siddiqui said.

Yang only visited the UCSB Liberated Zone encampment last spring once, Siddiqui noted. UCSB’s Liberated Zone aimed to negotiate their demands with the University. While they  had several meetings with administrators before the encampment’s dispersal on June 23, nothing came to fruition from the conversations. 

Siddiqui also said the new chancellor should pay attention to the needs of students and “go above and beyond” what the Regents are potentially considering. The International Gaucho Assistance Program, a new project Siddiqui has assisted with in A.S. that would allow international and undocumented students to get the similar grocery vouchers to CalFresh, is one example of a campus initiative he’d like to see the chancellor’s help with.

“The number one non-negotiable I would have is, I want a chancellor [whose] first response to students being concerned or upset or taking an action is not militarized police and violence,” Siddiqui said. “I want there to be a chancellor who’s going to be willing to engage in communication and understanding with students and also willing to make concessions to reach an amicable agreement.”

Speaking to his personal thoughts on Yang’s approach, Siddiqui said he had been a “pacifist,” which is “both good and bad.” He said it was hard to get Yang to move on things that students care about, like relinquishing his chair seat on the Thirty Meter Telescope board — a project to build a telescope on Mauna Kea, land sacred to Indigenous Hawaiians.

“The pros with [Yang’s pacifism] is that there is a reason why UCSB had the longest standing encampment. It’s because generally, Yang, as a chancellor, is someone who didn’t really like to take massive action on a lot of issues, at least not recently, and kind of preferred for things to just kind of settle by themselves,” Siddiqui said.

He speculated that the reason Yang is stepping down this year is because the Regents were unhappy with his management of the UCSB encampment. They may be looking for a chancellor who will take a more punitive approach toward students who violate the free speech policies, especially after the state withheld $25 million until systemwide free speech policies were enforced.

“We have a group of the Board of Regents who are nominated by the governor,” Siddiqui said. “The governor, very obviously, has presidential ambitions. I think it’s pretty clear for everyone to see the Regents were not happy about the way encampments were tolerated on UC campuses this year.”

To connect with the student body, Siddiqui will introduce himself in a university-wide email sometime before the first meeting and distribute a Google form for students to give their personal information and share anecdotes. He also plans to do outreach with student groups on campus “across the political spectrum.”

Siddiqui said he wasn’t sure who is in consideration for the chancellor appointment or how the committee meetings will go. 

UCSB Media Spokesperson Kiki Reyes did not respond to requests for comment about who would be on the board or how it would proceed over the next few months.

“Getting the chance to do something that no one has done for 32 years, that only has maybe happened in the entire history of UCSB, maybe three to four times, is an insane opportunity, and I’m incredibly grateful for it and incredibly excited to get to work,” Siddiqui said.

The committee’s first meeting will be on Oct. 30 and will convene monthly until Feb. 14. 

A version of this article appeared on p. 1 of the Oct. 10, 2024 edition of the Daily Nexus.

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Lizzy Rager
Lizzy Rager (she/her) is the Lead News Editor for the 2024-25 school year. She can be reached at lizzyrager@dailynexus.com