Editorial
Amendment deserves consideration
A number of students active in ASUO
government have proposed an amendment
to the ASUO constitution which would
abolish the ASUO senate.
The plan represents a radical
departure from standard reapportionment
and re-organization plans which are
periodically offered as cure-alls for
student government’s impotence.
Backers of the plan need 1,500 student
signatures on a petition to place the
measure on the ASUO general election
ballot.
Because the plan deserves con
sideration by the student body, the
Emerald endorses efforts to gain the
required sugnatures.
(A copy of the petition is printed
elsewhere on this page. Students may sign
the petition and deposit it at designated
tables on the EMU terrace and at the Co
op.)
The amendment would eliminate the
legislative branch of ASUO government
for one year, while retaining virtually
intact, the executive branch.
Allocation of incidental fees, the
primary function of the current senate,
would be handled by a five-man elected
incidental fee committee. In addition, the
ASUO president would create a con
stitutional committee to interpret and
implement the new constitution during its
year of operation.
The president would also appoint an
investigating committee charged with the
task of developing a new form of student
faculty government for the University.
This is the most important provision of
the amendment in terms of long-range
potential.
Student government can be viable only
if it shares responsibility with the
University faculty. Responsibility is not
shared under the present system.
The proposed amendment cannot
force faculty members to open governance
processes to students. But it is designed to
eliminate the charade that students do
share responsibility, a charade per
petuated by the senate.
At least, backers of the amendment
feel that by eliminating the senate it will
be possible to force the University to in
clude students in school governance.
The idea is appealing, and certainly
deserves consideration by the students.
Letters
Ordinary person
The easiest way to write someone off is
to make them tragic in a narrow sense and
different from you. But I refuse to be part
of your transvestite ghetto. I am going to
Los Angeles to be part of a film, and I
intend to be both a professor, an occasional
whore and an ordinary human being.
I am just an ordinary person who doesn’t
believe in sex roles especially in their
gender identification sense. The fact that I
am not basically gay is a point you refused
to make clear because it is actually more
of a threat to most males’ and some
females’ carefully prepared images and is
intended to be in open non-ghetto social
situations (in that sense another part of the
hip tribal revolution).
I am not yet great enough to be a true
clown and totally erase personality in
attending to my search, but then how
many are?
Sabina
(A. Michael Weber)
Morally bankrupt
The ASUO Senate has one chance to
salvage its reputation on campus: by
getting behind the check-off plan and
making it work. The students voted the
plan in last spring; the Senate has taken
nearly a year to determine that it is con
stitutional. The plan is feasible: I have a
friend who can solve the technical
problems and who has offered his service?
gratis.
If the Senate delays further, or decides
that the referendum can be ignored, it will
show itself to be morally bankrupt. The
ASUO programs and the administration
will walk all over the Senate in the
budgetary hearings, since it will be ap
parent that the Senate represents no one
and adheres to no principles.
In addition, I and others of like mind will
be tempted to consider non-violent
resistance to the Senate, e.g. sit-ins,
withholding of incidental fees, lawsuits,
etc.
John Winkelman
grad,psych
Library hours
Lately I’ve been pondering over
question of: what is the main goal of
University? When one is ousted from
Library at 10:00 P.M., one begins to
wonder if the obvious answer to the above
question is incorrect.
Gosing the Library at 10:00 presents a
real problem for education. The Library
provides the research materials and the
study facilities, which are the backbone of
learning. I trust most all of us will still
agree that education is the main goal of a
University, so why this roadblock in the
educational setup?
The University administration, con
tinually claims that there just aren’t
enough funds to keep the Library open past
10:00 (past 5:00 on Saturday). I find it
interesting that they seem to find enough
money to prune rose bushes outside of
Villard Hall and also to purchase
machinery to clean up leaves from the
lawns around the campus!
It seems to me that research and
studying should be given a higher priority
than rose bushes and leaf-free lawns. All I
ask, is that the University administration
direct more of their funds toward areas
that are conducive to a student’s
education, which is the main goal of the
University. Please gentlemen, lets see the
Library stay open till at least 12:00, seven
nights a week.
Jeff Lang
History
ASUO Governing Committee
Better governance
Petitions are currently circulating to
place a constitutional amendment on the
coming ASUO election ballots; an a
mendment abolishing the ASUO Senate as
an arm of student “government.” (By
signing the petition you won’t necessarily
be endorsing the plan itself, but just the
notion that this is a timely issue, and that
the student body at large deserves the
right to a public vote on the future of the
ASUO Senate.)
The Senate is an impotent body; we’ve
all been witness to that fact the last few
weeks, and it’s doubtful whether anything
can be done to alter the situation, at least
within the context of the present basic
structure. It’s a mistake to blame the
Senate’s incompetency on any one in
dividual or group, when the real roots of
the problem he in its structurally deter
mined position in the power relationships
of university governance.
As long as the ASUO Senate remains
separated from the faculty decision
making process (and thereby subject to its
absolute veto power), it’s also going to
remain structurally subordinate, ham
strung, essentially impotent and
illegitimate.
What the student community needs in
order to be fairly represented in university
decision-making is a system of equal co
governance; i.e., a joint legislative body
involving both students and faculty on
equal terms. This won’t be easy’. As a
necessary prerequisite to success in
negotiating a new system, we’ve got to
make it absolutely explicit once and for all
that the present form of student pseudo
government is simply not acceptable or
adequate to serve student interests.
Hence, the abolition of the Senate.
This isn’t just a nihilistic plan to destroy
the ASUO Senate; it was carefully and
thoughtfully executed with the interests of
the student community in mind. The in
cidental fee programs will still be funded
and administered by an elected interim
committee, and will not suffer loss of funds
by the passage of this plan. What we’ll be
doing is merely dispelling the illusion
(delusion?) that the ASUO Senate has any
real “legislative” powers or functions, and
paving the way for a viable and legitimate
system of university governance.
The plan’s going to require over 1,600
signatures in order to be placed on the
ballot. Please come on over to the EMU
anytime this week to talk it over and sign
the petition if you believe we deserve a
better form of governance than the ASUO
Senate’s been able to provide.
Bob Reno
343-8729
Not clear
Your review: “Contrasts: Real and
Man-Made Art,” by Stephen Bangs,
Emerald TTiurs. Feb. 8.
Your review was quite adequate and
should be praised. I take issue on one
point—the over kill craftsmanship you find
in my plastic box sculptures was not an
intended nuance, but rather a pretentious
statement about artifacts, art objects etc.
and their institutional over display.
I am sorry this was not clear as I had
intended.
Mike Walsh
Artist
Amendment petition
Editor’s Note: Following is the
petition for the proposed amendment to
the ASUO Constitution. The amend
ment requires 1,600 signatures if it is to
be placed on the general election ballot.
Students may sign this petition and
deposit it with petitioners on the EMU
terrace and at the Co-Op today and
Thursday.
SUMMARY OF CHANGES
MADE:
1. The ASUO Senate is abolished.
2. An Incidental Fees committee is
established (temporarily) to allocate,
with the Executive, the Incidental Fee
for the 1973-74 Fiscal Year.
3. A special committee is appointed
by the ASUO President to begin im
mediate negotiations with the faculty
and administration of the University,
and with the State Board of Higher
Education, with the purpose of
designing, and implementing, a system
of University governance involving
both students and faculty in a single
legislative body.
4. The new Constitution self
destructs on June 15, 1974. (Please be
sure to read the full text of the revised
Constitution, available in the ASUO
Vice-President’s office.)
PETITION TO PLACE A
CONSTITUTIONAL
AMENDMENT
ON THE GENERAL
ELECTION BALLOT
WE, THE UNDERSIGNED MEM
BERS OF THE ASSOCIATED
STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY
OF OREGON, having seen and un
derstood the proposed amendments to
the present ASUO Constitution, do
petition that the following be placed on
the general election ballot:
CONSTITUTIONAL
AMENDMENT
That Articles III through XII, in
clusive, of the present ASUO Con
stitution, be deleted and replaced by
Revised Articles III through XIII, the
intent of which is summarized below:
1. The ASUO Senate is abolished.
2. An Incidental Fees committee is
established (temporarily) to allocate,
with the Executive, the Incidental Fee
for the 1973-74 Fiscal Year.
3. A special committee is appointed
by the ASUO President to begin im
mediate negotiations with the faculty
and administration of the University,
and with the State Board of Higher
Education, with the purpose of
designing, and implementing, a system
of University governance involving
both students and faculty in a single
legislative body.
4. The new Constitution self
destructs on June 15, 1974.
The full text of the Revised Articles is
available in the Office of the Vice
President and has been published in the
Oregon Daily Emerald.
PLEASE SIGN
Name.
Telephone Number
Social Security Number
Are you a student winter
term 1973? .