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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 18, 1978)
.. -■1 " . editorial -—. Lobby ready for changes The Oregon Student Lobby Saturday tentatively voted to decrease the amount of money it receives from the students of the University. Currently, the OSL re ceives $1 per year per full-time-equivalent (FTE) student enrolled here. The OSL now seems willing to reduce that figure to 75 cents per year. The reduction in the University support for the OSL is apparently a reaction to criticism from two distinct groups: the ASUO, which believes that the OSL is funded too heavily by this University; and the other member schools, which believe that the University of Oregon dominates the action of the OSL, and should there fore be more heavily funded by this Uni versity. With the University of Oregon’s support for the organization waning, some changes seem to be in the wind for the OSL. And if all goes well, the changes should be for the better. The debate over the funding of the OSL has been a long-standing one. Since the inception of the OSL in 1973, the other member schools have argued that the OSL was controlled by the University of Oregon. And this year, ASUO president Gary Feldman has called for a reduction in the University of Oregon’s support, threatening to stop funding for the OSL entirely. Feldman’s argument is that the other members, especially Oregon State University (OSU) and Portland State Uni versity (PSU), both of which have equi valent enrollment but pour fewer dollars into the OSL, should carry their load. Another important factor in the OSL this year is that the ASUO under Gary Feld man is taking less interest in the organiza tion, and the OSL is not dominated by this University any longer. According to OSL executive secretary Dan Gamer, the Uni versity of Oregon has diluted power this year because Feldman is neither the chairman nor the vice-chairman of the organization’s Board of Directors — one or the other of which has usually been held by the ASUO president in the past. Gamer also says the OSL committees are often chaired by members of other schools. Gamer says the OSL funding goal for next year will be 75 cents per full-time V equivalent from each member school. In the past, the funding goal has been $1 per student, but the University of Oregon is one of the only schools — and it is the largest school — supporting the OSL at that level. Currently, the average contribu tion is 65 cents. OSU and PSU now pay half of the University of Oregon’s FTE rate. Gamer says the OSL is finding more support among the other schools for a 75 cent per FTE per year funding level. Keeping the OSL together is perhaps one of the most important things the stu dent governments of the member schools — including this school — can do. The OSL concentrates on student con sumerism issues, especially tuition. The main target for the OSL is, of course, the state legislature, where tuition levels for universities are set. During the 1977 legislative session, the OSL worked hard for keeping tuition down. With skilled legislative lobbying, and with the support of a powerful friend — State Senator Ed Fadeley—the OSL was largely responsi ble for gaining support in Salem to keep tuition down. The OSL is a respected or ganization at the legislature, and it is taken seriously. In addition to the legislature, the OSL follows the activities of the State System of Higher Education, including the State Board and the Chancellor of Higher Edu cation, to work for tuition controls, child care and a myriad of other issues. The latest plan proposed by the OSL is a loan repayment plan which would make stu dent loans repayable as a percentage of income after graduation. The plan has been revised to include a ceiling of .6 per cent of the loan to be repaid per $1,000 of income per year. That plan has attracted some attention in Oregon and in Washing ton, D.C. The OSL is well worth funding. It now appears that the OSL is becoming more responsive to the desires of other schools. If that is the case, the other schools should be willing to respond with cash. That would be a step in the right direction in the evolution of the OSL. But whatever the case, the OSL should not be allowed to die. Its service to the students is far too important to let that happen. J Letters— ‘Coming out’ After reading the article on Mari lyn Osgood-Knight's coming out, I was inspired by her courage to come out of my own “closet.” Even though I am in white skin...I am a black. I too have been in exile. I could never identify with whites. I could never enjoy what I consider white activities. Yester day, I openly identified myself as a black. I tap danced since I was three... I was a natural. I did not want to be white. I liked eating watermelons and playing basketball. During Black Pride Week, I turned around and said, "I am black,” then stopped. I too had fi nally confessed. The news came as a surprise to my mother, who was with me at the time. I re member the moment well. I rushed home to take inventory in the mirror to see if my hair had changed. I have decided to found an or ganization called Black-joy, in tended to expose and kill miscon ceptions about blacks. I have discovered that the ma jority of blacks actually have nor mal white skin. My boyfriend reacted predictably to my black revelation. His first reaction was “O.K., as long as nothing changes between us, but now do I have to learn to bump?” I have decided to be “black celi bate” as long as I am going with my boyfriend. I would not go out with blacks before and I won’t do it now. The day after I came out, I got an afro...kind of a Stevie Wonder thing. Then I said, “wait a minute, I’m not even musical.” So I just tinted my hair. As part of the Black-joy, I hope to organize the community and in the near future bring whites and blacks together. I hope to com municate with the local chanter of the KKK. I feel that I have a lot in common with the KKK, our par ents are white. I feel that they are doing the best they can with the information they have, but they are also doing a lot of harm. I hope that communications such as this will help break down stereotypes that I myself once held true. “Blacks are not upset with whites. Blacks cannot have a normal, steady relationship be cause they are over-sexed.” These are the stereotypes and they just are not true. I have received some criticism from blacks who do not under stand why I won’t give up my white skin. All my life, I have known I was different. Neither black nor white. I too have been in exile. J. I. Glover Senior, Anthropology An old friend I was saddened today (Jan 13) when I learned of Bernie Freemesser’s death. Bemie was my teacher and he was my friend. I shall miss him, but I shall not forget him. Bill Beckwith 1974 Journalism Graduate New York, N.Y. Letters policy The Emerald will accept and try to print all letters and opinion col umns containing fair comment on ideas and topics of concern or in terest to the University commun ity. Letters and opinions will be run on a first-come, first -served basis. All letters and opinions must be typewritten, using 65-character margins, and should be triple spaced. Letters and opinions must be signed and the author’s mainr or fan tltw cfati ic -—-Washington today--— Carter’s energy plan a beginning, not a cure By WALTER MEARS AP Special Correspondent WASHINGTON —Trying to sell his energy program, President Carter has advertised his stalled proposals as prescriptions for about everything except the flu. He doesn’t claim his program is a cure for all the i lls the administra tion has linked to energy, only a treatment. But that reservation is getting lost in the sales pitch. As a result, the product may not live up to expectations. At the same time, there is also a risk that when — and if — Congress gets around to passing the energy measures, they will be seen as a solution to a problem that is not solved that easily. The program the White House is pushing represents at best a first step toward managing the problem. When he proposed his energy plan 10 months ago, Car ter said as much. “It is a problem we will not solve in the next few years, and it is likely to get prog ressively worse through the rest of this century,” he said then. That reminder is worth remem bering as Congress returns on Thursday, with unfinished energy Page 4 Section A measures still snarled in a dead lock over natural gas price con trols. Even when that issue is settled, House and Senate negotiators will have to work out an agreement on disputed tax proposals before there can be final action on the I-: administration package of tax, regulation and conservation measures. Carter has said he is confident the bills will be approved early this year. But there’s no guarantee of it, and there probably is some more selling to be done. I . OUST AMOTt-CR. KOOK Distributed by fios^Ugeles'Simes' SYNDICATE The president came back from his seven-nation trip to report that he found grave concern in every foreign capital at U.S. inaction on energy. "They are looking to our country to see whether we have the will, the resolve, to deal squarely with our energy problems, which are also becoming their problems," Carter said. He went on to link the energy bills to the economic health of Western democracy."... In Paris and in Brussels ; our own allies ex pressed concern about whether we can and will enact strong energy legislation,” Carter told a news conference Jan. 13. “If our own economy is not strong, if our strength is being sapped be ex cessive imports, then we can’t provide the kind of leadership and stability on which the economic well-being of the Western democ racies rest so heavily.” And there was more. With the value of the dollar down in world money markets, and the $45 billion annual price tag of oil imports a factor in that decline, Carter said his energy program would help deal with that situation by reducing dependence on foreign oil. “It would improve our trade situation, our national economy, the strength of the dollar in a fun damental way.” Furthermore, he said, uncer tainty about energy policy is con tributing to high interest rates and also to trouble on Wall Street, where stock prices have been going down. Jody Powell, the White House press secretary, said the lack of energy legislation was a factor in Carter’s effort to deal with nuclear proliferation. He said it was dif ficult to convince other nations, such as India, that the United States is serious about avoiding nuclear proliferation when there has been no action to curb the use of oil and other natural fuels. In addition, Carter has said ex cessive oil imports are causing unemployment, 40,(XX) jobs for every $1 billion increase in im ports. “With those dollars that go overseas we are in effect export ing American jobs,” he said. There’s no question that all those problems are related to energy. There’s little doubt that they will persist, with or without the administration energy program. It represents a beginning in con fronting energy problems, and it would, as Carter has said, reflect a national will to deal with them.
