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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 25, 1981)
opinion It’s time to get money’s worth from OSPIRG The University’s Incidental Fee Committee can take full credit for sending a floundering and inefficient OSPIRG back to square one in the often quick and brutal game of student-fees allocation. It’s true that OSPIRG’s University funding problems are only one part of a state-wide re-ex amination of the group’s goals and structure, but the University’s IFC held the trump card for the group’s future and played it well Tuesday night. Slashing more than 75 percent of the group’s 1980-81 budget, the fee committee left no doubt that it expects some results from its $10,000-year investment in the Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group. In the last few years the University hasn’t received OSPIRG results that even approach “money’s-worth status.” What it has received is a false responsibility for the group’s survival and misdirected pressure to provide 40 percent of the group’s budget. The IFC should be commended for balking at that bogus responsibility and paying OSPIRG what it’s worth. OSPIRG’s worth in dollar figures is subject to debate, of course, but $10,000 clearly is in the correct ballpark, while the current allocation of approximately $42,000 is nowhere close. Other Oregon schools, too, have realized the lack of return on their investment, but the com bined cuts of the two other Oregon schools that have vowed to pare OSPIRG’s budget don’t ap proach the cut made Tuesday night in the EMU. And the schools that continue to support OSPIRG traditionally have allocated only a quarter of the money doled out by the University's IFC. Oregon State University, for example, which is committed to “doing everything we can to get (OSPIRG) off the ground," will fund the group close to the $10,620 it allocated for this year. That "suppott" figure looks like a sibling of the University’s pared figure — a testimony to the disparity in statewide funding of the research group. By approving $10,000 Tuesday night, the IFC signaled the other Oregon schools that it won’t continue to pick up the tab for a mediocre pro gram that serves the entire state, and it signaled OSPIRG that future funding levels may be predicated by performance. vours Trader Vic The very buzzards we see circling the Oregon campuses were unleashed from your arms Trader Vic. If you hear a knocking heating radiator in your office late at night, I suggest that it’s more than a noisy hot water heater. When is your administration going to climb out of your suits of shining armor and back into Oregon 1981? Is this the message you want to bring to the White House by going to such economic extremes for Rural and Jobless Oregon? Before your administration raises the tuition on Oregon campuses and vastly lower our already diminishing quality of education and probably forever end any hopes of updating our poverty-stricken library here at the University of Oregon, I sug gest that we look at your remark on tuition hikes in the Monday issue of the Daily Emerald. “It’s a lot higher than when I was going to schooJ. But is it higher than it should be?” Don’t tell us about the time you went to college. Every time I enter our main campus library, the vast majority of available books are of that time period. I ask you, Gov. Vic Atiyeh “How much education do you expect to wring out of these 1940-1950 circa donated books?" Of course inflation has increased dramatically in recent years, no thanks to your administration. However, as our tuition was raised, the number of students in our classrooms per professor has also increased dramatically and lowered quality of education. Could this be a political play by your administration to Bank Roll your pet project "Building new corrections facilities?” Do you Gov. Atiyeh truly believe that breaking the back of Oregon in order to stay within the Guidelines of President Reagan that the other states (better off than we are economy-wise) will do the same? Mitchell Anstine Speech, Gerontology, Chemestry-Biology Blind patriotism I swear if I hear one more person parrot the phrase "love it or leave it” I am sure to puke. Mr. Morison, blind patriotism for one’s government is not what this country of ours was founded on. If you will read your history books instead of channeling all of your energies into the quest for the big green you will find that our own revolution was in opposition to a tyrannical government. We wanted to control our own destiny. I suppose, Mr. Morison, that if this were 1776 you would be telling Thomas Jef ferson to get the hell out. Sir, I don’t presume to be any kind of super patriot, but I can see the path on which our nation is travelling and at the end of that path lies disaster. I suggest, sir, that it is you who lacks information. Here is some suggested reading: The Chilean Spring, The Republic of Nicaragua, and look up America's Open Door Policy. Maybe the Truman doctrine. You could maybe read about the Bay of Pigs, Somoza, the shah, SAVAK, Marcos, Diem, Kim, Batista, Cy prus, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, El Sal vador, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia the list, sir, could fill this page with ease. So when you are finished gathering this information come see me, and then tell me to get the hell out. Bradley Passenger Sophomore, psychology Make a difference Here’s your chance to make a differ ence as a single person in a sea of millions. A very important program is slated to face Reagan’s budgetary axe this summer. Whether or not you have heard of the Youth Conservation Corps is immaterial to its need to survive. We all benefit from this invaluable use of federal funds. YCC drawes young woman and men of all races and economic backgrounds from the community to provide them with a positive work and social experience. This program also provides job oppor tunities for college-age persons and older who are willing to spend their summer outdoors working with young people. In addition to providing a solid employment opportunity, YCC allows the young people to be involved in an ongo ing attitude of learning about the natural environment. Crew leaders are required to instruct the students in ecological concerns as well as communication and social skills. I have taught in public schools in Oregon and must admit that the personal growth I witnessed in high y SHUmEBOTT S tiles?? H®5nll Ws s W FLYING 0] SS* fcftTJfoOM schools is insignificant compared to that which occurs in YCC. In this age of “acceptable deficits” YCC is a truly amazing federal program inasmuch as it is cost effecient. If you are concerned about the welfare of future generations, now is the time to contact our congressmen. Sen. Mark Hatfield is the most important, as he is a Republican and on the Appropriations Committee. Write to him at the Senate Office Build ing, Washington, D C. 20510. Initially, this may not impress you as much as nuclear proliferation, poverty, human rights, and the myriad of other social issues. YCC, however, is dedicat ed to building people. Isn’t that where it all begips? Daniel Henry GTF, speech Dissent cut Although the Emerald managed to survive retaliation for its criticism of the IFC’s policy on religious groups seeking student funds, another student publica tion was not so fortunate. Among the Student Bar Association budget items that suffered the commit tee’s axe was the Dissent. The Dissent, the SBA’s student newsletter, had also chosen to comment critically on the IFC’s goal approval for the LDSSA It lost about a third of its funding last week, perhaps because the Dissent, too, fails to project that “positive image of the University” that Mrs. Harris found lack ing in the Emerald and so important to the economic survival of student pub lications. I would not consider funding for the LDS “genealogy” group any more ob jectionable than the involuntary student financial support of many other IFC-sup ported groups of dubious value to students; from the Athletic Department to the Muslim Students. I do find objec tionable the apparent willingness of some IFC members to suppress criticism of their decisions by slashing funds from student publications that offer such cri ticism. I do not share Mr. Edmunson’s high opinion of the Emerald, which frequently provides students with noth ing more valuable than pre-printed litter and some subjective ego trips by pro tojournalists. I do share legitimate con cerns about any IFC decision that is implicitly based on politics, rather than any genuine effort to improve the quality of student publications. If last week's decision on the Dissent was in fact an example of the petty re tribution that it appears to be, one hopes such episodes will not be repeated. And one hpes that editors of all student pub lications on this campus can continue to express their opinions and comment on the use of student funds without the fear of punitive budget reductions. David Force Second year law
