Maintaining a Healthy Community During Election Season

Campus Update

Interim Chancellor Hunt shared this message with the Bruin community:

Dear Bruin Community:

Once again, our national, state and local elections are here — inviting us to have our say on the people who represent us and the issues that matter to us. I urge every Bruin who is eligible to vote to do so on or before election day, Tuesday, Nov. 5.

UCLA has many resources available to help you get to know candidates and their views, brush up on ballot measures and participate in the democratic process. As was shared this morning in a message from the Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement Network, UCLA’s BruinsVote website is an excellent source of information about how to vote both on campus and off.

This has been a contentious election season, reflecting broader political divides in our country. The election results may bring great joy to some and deep disappointment to others. I urge you to treat one another with sensitivity and respect in the days ahead. In a diverse community such as ours, we will not always agree, but we can — and must — commit to honoring one another’s dignity and respecting one another’s humanity. 

We have services and resources available to support you during this moment and to help you process the election results, whatever they may be:

• UCLA Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) offers confidential mental health services for students, including counseling and support groups. Contact CAPS at (310) 825-0768 or visit the CAPS website. 
• UCLA’s Staff and Faculty Counseling Center offers services for employees and can be reached at (310) 794-0245 or the Staff & Faculty Counseling Center website. 
• UCLA’s Free Speech website has additional well-being resources for the community.
• Today from 4 to 5 p.m., the RISE Center will host Diving into Dialogue: Healthy Conversations Around Politics.
• The Dialogue across Difference Initiative has resources and programs in place to support meaningful engagement across political divides. The initiative’s leaders will be sharing more information this week. 
• On Nov. 6 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Student Affairs will host a Post-Election Reflection Event in Bradley Hall 300 providing space for students to process election results and connect with campus resources.
• Offices such as our LGBTQ Campus Resource Center, Undocumented Student Program and Dashew Center for International Students and Scholars are actively engaging with members of the Bruin community to address specific concerns that potential policy changes could have on their campus experiences.
• The Teaching and Learning Center (TLC) has developed an election resource for instructors that provides guidance for addressing the election in the classroom and language for facilitating or deferring related conversations. This guidance and additional forthcoming election-related resources for instructors is available on the TLC’s Maintaining Instructional Continuity web page.

I also want to acknowledge that we may not know the final election results on election night, and that vote tallies may change in the weeks ahead as mail-in ballots are counted. At a time when rumors and misinformation can be fueled by algorithms and AI, I encourage you to consult credible news sources that rely on fact-checkers and editorial standards, and look to time-tested sources of information like the L.A. County Registrar of Voters office and the Secretary of State offices in various states. 

In fraught times, let’s recall the wisdom of the great American writer James Baldwin, who once counseled that “the moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us, and the light goes out.”

Regardless of the outcome of the elections, we must not let the light go out. Even if we are troubled by the election results, we must continue to respect one another as colleagues, friends and members of a shared community.

Sincerely,