.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.