Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 6, 1978)
.editorial. IFC looks at student apathy The silent majority is a problem not only for federal and local governments, but also for the ASUO. An average turnout for ASUO presidential elections is less than 10 per cent and the voter turnout is even less for IFC and Student University Affairs Board (SUAB) positions. The IFC is attempting to combat the apparent apathy of students by placing a computer print-out card explaining the in cidental fees to be included in the registra tion packets of students. It’s a good idea, since students all too often seem to be ignorant of what the incidental fees are spent for and in some cases they don’t seem to know how much of their money goes to the programs supported by fees. The print-out card probably won’t be able to contain a detailed analysis of the fee usage. But getting the total figure of the incidental fees in front of the students may encourage more interest in the way the money is spent, which in turn should create more student participation in stu dent government. Each student pays $31 per term in incidental fees. That money is distributed among seven major categories: The EMU, intercollegiate athletics, the (number of) ASUO programs, ASUO gov ernance, the Daily Emerald, the Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group and the Oregon Student Lobby (OSL). The total IFC budget for 1977-78 is $1,436,452. Here is a breakdown of where you $31 goes: •—$16.74 (54 percent) goes to the EMU. Most of that money is allocated to the EMU administration, food services, EMU program (such as child care, the outdoor program, dub sports and the cul tural forum) and maintenance. •-$4.77 (15.4 percent) goes to in tercollegiate athletics. The bulk of that is a subsidy for student tickets to football, basketball and other admission-charging sports events. Another large segment goes to women’s athletics, mostly to aid in University compliance with Title IX regula tions, calling for the equality of men’s and women’s athletics. •-ASUO programs bite $4.65 (15 percent) out of the total. The ASUO funds more than 50 programs, including minor ity programs, the crisis center, the food op, the Interfratemity council, the Panhel lenic organization, the student bar as sociation and the Office of Student Advo cacy, to name a few. •~$1.90 is tunneled into the ASUO government. That 6.3 percent is used for salaries and expenses, administrative expenses and special programs of the ASUO executive, the IFC, and SUAB, the EMU Board and for miscellaneous ex penses, such as elections. •-The Daily Emerald gets $1.39, or 4.5 percent. This is a subsidy for student subscription rates. •-OSPIRG receives 80 cents, which is used for research and lobbying on be half on the students. •-The Oregon Student Lobby pock ets 30 cents, which is used for research and lobbying efforts on issues such as tuition. The lobbying is done primarily at the state legislature. For the entire year, each of the major areas receive me ronowing amounts: EMU.$784,037 Athletics.$221,979 ASUO programs.$215,587 ASUO government .$784,037 Emerald.$65,785 OSPIRG.$43,000 OSL .$14,000 That's where the money flows now, but in the near future, the IFC will have to contend with declining student enroll ments, which means it will receive fewer dollars. Faced with this situation, the IFC will apparently have to contend with two alternatives: to streamline the budget by cutting EMU losses and by streamlining programs or to raise the total number of dollars each student pays per term. In either case, the programs will probably not expand in the future and decreases in some areas may be in order to prevent fee increases. With these alternatives, student input into IFC actions is perhaps more impor tant now than any time in recent student government history. It is essential for the IFC to spur more student interest in these vital decisions. Letter Petition drive Join our Initiative Petition drive to restore Oregon Workers’ Com pensation benefits (1 out of 11 workers will have job injuries) and also restore your right to be free of lawyers! Section 26 of our Petition creates the following Oregon Workers’ Compensation Law: “(1) Reference in this chapter (O.R.S. 656) to attorneys or ft members of any state bar associa tion shall apply equally to self representing injured workers, employers, insurers or their non bar association representatives.” “(2) Notwithstanding the provi sions of O.R.S. Chapter 9, all par ties to a question or dispute under this chapter shad have the right to self-representation and the choice of non-bar assistance or rep resentation.” “(3) Attorney fees shall be awarded to self-representing in jured workers, employers, insur ers or their representatives of A choice in the same manner as would be awarded to members of the Oregon State Bar.” Besides providing you an es cape from lawyers’ control, the foregoing law assures that you will receive additional monies for hav ing to defend your rights to com pensation, and thus will cause in surance firms to think twice before unjustly contesting your job acci dent claim. John M. Reed (BA ’67) 1295 “B” Street Springfield, Oregon , _ —■»’ TV intJKOM. "tm timin' V .. ^ ^ ^ ^ - TD,HO,T»R! '(KlWAY WAS SAW* ARUB/A.. THIS HERE'S 1HE BURSHSS OF BS^HMT p«e 4 editorial— could a county stabilizer The beginning of a new year and the simultaneous beginning of a new chairman of the board of County Commissioners brings a tone of optimism for the next year of county government. Jerry Rust, who served as the board vice-chairman for 1977, has been named chairman for this year, with Bob Wood serving as vice-chairman. Now that the feisty Archie Weinstein no longer holds the board chairmanship, we hope the county commissioners’ meetings become more orderly and less pathetic. Too often, it seems the commissioners spend more time chastising each other than they do working on sub stantial issues. Rust, however, should assert himself more than he has in the past. Rust has been the greatest disappointment, partly because he sounded so excellent in campaigning for the board position in 1976 but has so far failed to carry his fresh ideas to the board. Some of his plans are fine, but too often he seems to act on measures that he hasn’t fully investigated. As an example, late last month the commissioners approved in concept a proposal to review land-use planning in the county. Proposed by Wood, the proposal calls for the examination of the land-use plans in terms of the spectrum of statewide land-use planning goals. The commissioners voted to send the proposal to the county ad ministrative aides and the county staff, to develop implementation plans. However, each commissioner had his own idea of what the proposal was intended to do. Weinstein thought the proposal should include the reopening of the county sub-area plans, essentially starting from scratch with the land-use plans already developed or being de veloped in the county. Wood thought the proposal should be only to review the plans, apparently in an effort to fine-tune them and come up with an analysis of where the county now stands in land-use planning. Rust was somewhere between the two, saying the county shouldn’t throw the plans in the wastebasket, but the reviewing the plans would be similar to reopening them. Shortly before passing the proposal on to the county aides, Rust made a classic statement that shows the essence of what the board is like this year: “Well, let’s pass this proposal and worry about the in terpretation later.” As board chairman, Rust should be more concerned about getting the interpretation of county measures explicit before passing them. As it is, passing proposals onto county aides gives the aides themselves the ability to compromise on behalf of the commissioners. That is far too much power for the aides, and compromises should be made by the commissioners themselves in view of the public, particularly on an issue as salient as land-use planning. Rust has his work cut out for him. He will be between the usually feisty Weinstein and the sometimes sardonic Wood. But he should be able to bring more control into the county commissioners’ meetings. We hold a lot of optimism for this year, and for the new board chairman. " editorial - India shouldn’t touch tar baby President Carter's latest globe-trotting has highlighted a controversy in at least one issue: nuclear weaponry spreading to more and more countries. While in India, a nation which now has nudear weaponry, although no capability to use them effec tively, Carter found sharp disagreement with Indian leader Moraji Desai over India's nuclear capability. It is understandable that small, underdeveloped nations would like to achieve nuclear capability in order to command more autonomy from the two nuclear giants. But with the prolif eration of nuclear arms, at a time when the two superpowers are at least making token efforts at arms controls, presents a danger of creating nuclear feifdoms throughout the world. Carter has said that he will send a “cold and blunt” com munique to Desai to encourage him to cooperate with halting the spread of nuclear weapons. In India, where 45 per cent of the population lives in the squalor of poverty and where 50 million people are unemployed, the reaction to India's spending desperately needed revenue on nuclear weaponry is appalling, in perhaps no other country is the government’s reckless abandonment of domestic needs to prop up nuclear capability more pitiful. Desai s argument is that the U.S. should follow its own metonc in calling for nuclear disarmament before foisting its views on other nations. Certainly the U.S. should do that, but the spread of nudear weaponry coinciding with the spread of pov erty and linger is a problem of worldwide significance. The hands of the U.S. are already stuck firmly on the tar baby, and it should indeed warn other nations coldly and biuntly not to get stuck m the same mess.
