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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 20, 1981)
emerald Vol. 82, No. 136 Eugene, Oregon 97403 Monday, April 20, 1981 -1 Wilkins ready to direct ASUO Photo by Erich Boekelheide Rich Wilkins By PAUL TELLES Of the Emerald ASUO Pres.-elect Rich Wilkins wants student-funded programs to start pulling their own weight. “The ASUO programs need to start making money," says Wilkins, the La Grande native University students elected last week — in a landslide victory — to head the ASUO executive office. “There’s going to be a big push to strengthen the ASUO programs,” he says. When Wilkins’ administration takes over May 25, he says it will concentrate on making the programs self-sufficient. But he suggests University rules will have to change before programs can initiate effective fund-raising efforts. Campus groups now are required to hire an EMU auditor to count money from fund-raising events. And the groups usually pay the EMU to set up for the events. "Instead of paying somebody to set up chairs, maybe they could do a little work them selves,” Wilkins says. The ASUO will try to organize program management workshops to teach program dir ectors to run their events more efficiently. He says he will assist the programs with their prob lems but won’t make the ASUO Executive an advocacy or recruiting service for the programs. “There needs to be some kind of working relationship (between the executive and the programs), but also some kind of indepen dence,” he says. The new ASUO administration also will try to involve more students in efforts to improve the University's quality. Wilkins says he will try to start a Campus Development Commission — a group of interested students who would explore lew ways of funding University projects. For instance, Wilkins says the commission could train student program leaders to write grants so they could seek other ways to fund their activities. The commission also could investigate methods for funding areas like the athletic department, the library and the EMU. The commission could try to involve students in University issues: such as collective bargaining, Wilkins adds. The EMU budget will come under especially close scrutiny during Wilkins’ administration "I’d like to see the EMU start making a little money instead of being subsidized," he says. Next year’s ASUO Executive Office will look carefully at luxuries such as the EMU Main Desk’s telephone and utility bill collection ser vice, Wilkins says. “Those things are nice. But with the cost of everything going up, it's not necessary that we raise the only part of the fee we have control of.” Changes in EMU budgeting will be contin gent on the success of the EMU Board’s recent budget-cutting efforts, Wilkins says. Still the ASUO plans to sponsor a major program like last year’s "Surviving the 1980s conference, Wilkins says. Wilkins received 72.5 percent of the vote in last week's ASUO primary election. Wilkins, a junior majoring in political science, is a former president of the Political Science Student Union and of the General Assembly of the Model United Nations. Wilkins currently is ASUO vice president for state and University affairs and legislative coor dinator for the Survival Center. Thousands protest aid to El Salvador oy junn mills Of the Emerald A chain of people more than four blocks long marched six abreast through downtown Eugene Satur day to protest U S. involvement in El Salvador. Between 1,500 and 2,000 demonstrators began their march from the University at noon carrying homemade signs and chanting slogans such as "No draft, no war, U.S. out of El Salvador,” and "Rock efeller, hey, you can’t hide, we charge you with gen ocide.” The march ended in the downtown mall. The key speaker at the two-hour rally that followed was Ricardo Melaro, one of six delegates of the Sal vadoran Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR) touring the United States to gain support for their fight against the current government. That government has been receiving U.S. economic and military aid. Melaro said in a "just war of defense," 1,300 Salvadoran people were killed in one year in the "struggle against the junta, the army and the Reagan administration." "The Reagan administration is the only thing that is keeping the junta standing,” he told demonstrators Melaro said reports that the conflict is a testing ground for the United States and the Soviet Union are "very dangerous and simplistic because they negate the struggle of the Salvadoran people.” "We have not received, to this day, one bullet from the socialist countries,” he said, "because we know accepting this bullet would be justification for interven tion.” Rebels make their own weapons, buy them on the international market, or use U.S. arms taken away from the junta, Melaro said. Melaro said the more than 150 organizations in the FDR, including students, writers, and peasants, are the [aoBSEn Photo by Erich Boekelheide 1,500 to 2,000 demonstrators wound their way through Eugene in a protest march Saturday. "legitimate representatives of the El Salvadoran peo ple.” Melaro said the FDR’s program includes nation alization of the banking system, agrarian and urban reform, and credit reform to allow international com merce. Gene Bailey, Secretary Tresurer for Local 12 of the International Longshoreman Workers Union, told the crowd her union is opposed to any intervention in Central or Sodth America. The union voted to boycott shipments to El Salvador from West Coast docks and "stop all the cargo that we can,” Bailey said. Eugene city councilor Cindy Wooten, an aide to Rep. Jim Weaver, D-Ore., added that Weaver is co-sponsoring a bill to “stop putting weapons in the hands of strutting dictators.” Reagan is "blinded by the red flags of commun ism,” and Congress is receiving letters 10-to-1 against the administration’s policy in El Salvador, Wooten said. Bill Deforrest of the Eugene Police Department, who was in charge of the 14 police officers at the march, said the event was well-organized and peaceful — distinguishing it from the marches of the 1960s The march and rally was organized by the April 18th Coalition, which represents more than 90 co-sponsors and endorsers, including such University groups as MECHA, University Veterans, Iranian Students As sociation, the Black Student Union, the Coalition Opposing Registration and the Draft, and SEARCH
