Student activities and traditions at UC Irvine

Did You Know?

• Events featuring controversial guest speakers such as John Yoo and Viet Dinh have attracted large crowds of demonstrators.
• Recent activism efforts include support for Tagalog and Filipino Studies (TAPS) and awareness for the situation in Israel-Palestine by Students for Justice in Palestine and Anteaters for Israel.
• The Muslim Student Union has sponsored lectures on campus.

Shared governance

UC Irvine has separate student governments for undergraduates and graduates. The Associated Students of the University of California, Irvine (ASUCI) represents undergraduates and has executive, legislative, and judicial branches; it is a member of the United States Student Association. In 2014, after a referendum creating a self-governing territory, ASUCI withdrew from the University of California Student Association. ASUCI's Student Programming Funding Board funds many student organizations, and ASUCI sponsors annual concerts and festivals including Shocktoberfest, Wayzgoose, Summerlands, and Soulstice. Other committees, such as the Student Fee Advisory Committee, provide shared governance in certain areas, and several advisory boards oversee campus entities funded by student-initiated referendum fees.

Student media

UC Irvine’s official student newspaper is the New University, or New U. As of the 2022–23 academic year, it comes out online year-round and in print once each quarter. Undergraduates make up the editorial staff. Each spring quarter, the current editorial board votes to elect the next year’s editor-in-chief, who then picks the new board. The paper is a university department under Student Government & Student Media, but it gets very little funding from the school. Its press freedom is protected by California’s Leonard Law, which was updated in 2006 to cover public colleges. Unlike many campus papers, the New University has no faculty advisor and no formal link to any academic program. KUCI is the official student-run radio station.

On-campus activities

The Anteater Recreation Center, or ARC, came about thanks to a student fee vote. It functions as a campus gym, and members can pay extra for classes in things like martial arts, team sports, SCUBA diving, and sailing. Club sports are also free for any ARC member to join, with options including badminton, ice hockey, lacrosse, roller hockey, rugby, sailing, and volleyball. The Student Center and the Cross-Cultural Center serve as main hubs for student groups and resources. A recent expansion of the Student Center will bring the building to 300,000 square feet, adding two new food courts, a large ballroom, a clock tower, plus several conference centers and shops. The Student Center’s growth has happened in four stages over roughly three decades. Phase I, in 1981, gave the campus a bookstore, a restaurant, a music room, a small game room, some study areas, and two conference rooms. Phase II, just a year later, added another study lounge, a food unit, and a 300-seat multipurpose room. Phase III, in 1990, brought a larger bookstore, more study and lounge space, a new game room, an expanded food area, the Crystal Cove Auditorium, and extra meeting rooms. The Cross-Cultural Center also opened then, featuring meeting rooms, offices for the Student Umbrella Organization, and study and lounge space. Phase IV, from 2007 to 2009, tripled the conference and meeting area, added a multipurpose room and a large ballroom, increased study space for both individuals and small groups, and created two new dining areas with indoor and outdoor seating, plus a permanent performance space on the terrace. The Cross-Cultural Center doubled in size during this phase, gaining a large multipurpose room and more conference and office space.

Controversies

In March 2015, the undergraduate student government's legislative body approved a measure to remove all flags from a shared workspace in their offices. The proposal noted that the American flag had been used in contexts of colonialism and imperialism, and argued that in a space aiming for inclusivity, free expression could be seen as hate speech. After the student government president publicly opposed the measure on social media, it sparked widespread debate, drawing both criticism and support from students and the broader public. The student representatives who backed the ban faced severe harassment, including death threats. University administrators dismissed the resolution as misguided, emphasizing that the views of a small group of students do not reflect the campus's nearly 30,000 students and carry no weight in official university policy. The student council's executive branch later blocked the ban. In response, California State Senator Janet Nguyen suggested amending the state constitution to prevent taxpayer-funded campuses from banning the American flag. Meanwhile, professors and students from various universities signed a letter supporting the resolution's authors, citing the hostility, death threats, and racial slurs they had endured. UC Irvine Chancellor Howard Gillman first called the vote outrageous and indefensible, announcing plans to add more flagpoles on campus. However, after facing criticism from students and faculty, he wrote a conciliatory op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, urging an end to the harassment and acknowledging that criticizing the flag is part of university life and a sign of a free society.