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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (June 3, 1998)
I— CONTACTING US NEWSROOM: (541)346-5511 E-MAIL: ode@oregon uoregon.edu ADDRESS: Oregon Daily Emerald P.0. BOX 3159 Eugene, Oregon 97403 ONLINE EDITION: www.uoregon.edu/~ode Perspectives EDITOR IN CHIEF Sarah Kickler EDITORIAL EDITOR Mike Schmierbach NIGHT EDITOR Holly Sanders L CHRIS HUTCHINSON/Emerald Business influence could sink university system The growing ties between business and education are combining with decreasing corporate tax revenues to hurt students Molly Ivins is fond of reminding people that in Texas, “busi ness” is pronounced “bid ness.” Here in Oregon, we have our own way of pro nouncing the word — say it with me, now — “educa tion.” Big business has always tried to influence higher edu cation. In Oregon, though, a combination of shady poli tics, misguided policy and inattention to history threat ens to let big business swal low the Oregon University Jeff Shaw system whole. Want shady poli tics? How about this: The Oregon Business Council and the As sociated Oregon In dustries crafted a bill, SB 919, designed to implement pro-business policy changes in OUS. Herb Ashkenasy, president of the OUS board, is also a board member of As sociated Oregon Industries. Essentially, he lobbied him self to accept his own vision for higher education reform. It isn’t just Ashkenasy. When Gov. John Kitzhaber formulated his task force on higher education in 1997. he appointed Duncan Wyse, president of the Oregon Busi ness Council, to staff it. Not surprisingly, Wyse stacked the task force with corporate types like Tom Imeson of the Fortune 500 company Pacifi Corp and Don Van Luvanee, CEO of Electro Scientific In dustries. As Ed Dennis of the Oregon Student Association has said, the task force is composed of “business lead ers who are proud that they don’t know anything about higher education — it’s just a disaster.” The disaster manifests it self in a few ways. First, stu dents get fewer and fewer op tions for educational opportunities. SB 919 estab lishes a set of “performance indicators” which are “cus tomer-driven” — and no, the customer isn’t you. It’sPaci fiCorp, Electro Scientific In dustries and other employ ers. So university services, as a result of SB 919, are to be evaluated and funded based on how well they meet the needs of business. The impli cation? If business doesn’t make a profit based on your degree program, your degree program is in danger. Some might not see the problem with this at first. Everyone wants a job, they might say. Shouldn’t we be asking how university cours es might help us achieve this goal? There’s certainly nothing wrong with wanting to find a job, but there are a lot of rea sons this shouldn’t be our only calculus. Most important, Oregon business doesn’t really care if you find a job or not. Busi ness is about profit, not full employment. It's not a coin cidence that most of the edu cation programs the Oregon Business Council and Asso ciated Oregon Industries want to fund are high-tech training programs. With few qualified workers, high-tech corporations have to pay the workers available a living wage. That’s why the industry sponsored SB 504 pushed through $5 million in fund ing for high-tech education: pushing down wages in creases profit margins. That’s why Ashkenasy et al. are in filtrating the higher educa tion system. No longer do they have to spend private funds on training; with their newfound influence, they can get the taxpayer to pick up the tab. And bear the burden of a failing education system. New Jersey has already tried a remarkably similar experi ment in higher education un der Gov. Christine Todd Whitman. The results? In New Jersey’s four-year colleges and universities, tu ition and fees have gone up 22 percent and are scheduled to see additional increases of between 10 and 14 percent by the end of 1998, according to Professor Steven Shalom of William Patterson Univer sity. Sound familiar? If it doesn’t, this should: Whitman bragged in 1997 that she had “cut a host of business taxes to create a more favorable climate for business expansion.” In her State of the State Address, she bragged about a number of higher education institu tions partnering up with in dustry in a way New Jersey had never seen. This is just what Chancel lor Joe Cox of OUS means when he brags that Oregon’s changes will force colleges to “direct the delivery of educa tional services toward targets set by industry.” The consequences: “The colleges point out that they have been forced to raise tu ition to make up for inade quate funding from Trenton, which has been covering an increasingly smaller share of their budgets,” Shalom writes. Here’s the upshot: Our tax revenues are enough to pay for meaningful and fulfilling education if businesses pay their fair share. But they don’t want to pay their fair share. They’d rather use someone else’s tax money to eliminate their own training expenses. And if decreasing tax revenues means eliminat ing programs, which pro grams do you think get the axe? Programs business can use? Or programs students want? With business leaders in such positions of influence, we shouldn’t be surprised what the answer is. Ivins might call this “bidness as usual.” Jeff Shaw is a columnistfor the Emerald. His work appears on alternate Wednesdays. His views do not necessarily repre sent those of the newspaper. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Minority faculty The Oregon Students of Color Coalition recently indi cated that the Department of Special Education and Com munity Resources in the College of Education has no tenured or tenured-track professors of color. We are writ ing to indicate that of the 10 tenured or tenured-track pro fessors in our department, two professors are of color. We ask that the coalition check the accuracy of its statistics be fore making statements of such importance and provide a correction to its report. We agree that the University must strive to increase the diversity of its student body and fac ulty and instruction and curriculum. Our department places high value on student, staff and faculty applicants from diverse backgrounds, and many of our faculty con duct research and teach course work that addresses diver sity issues and concerns. George Sugai Edward Kameenui Professors, Special Education Support farmworkers Farmworkers in Oregon don’t enjoy rights many of us take for granted, such as paid breaks and overtime pay. Farmworkers who dare speak out about substandard liv ing and working conditions are subject to firing, eviction from company-owned housing and even physical vio lence. At Coleman Farms in St. Paul, Ore., Gabriel Solis has been fired, and he and his family are being evicted from the trailer where they live for supporting his union, Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN). So lis, after 18 years working for the Colemans, was making $7 an hour, working 12-14 hour shifts six days a week with no benefits when he was fired. Last year the Cole mans had to pay out a large settlement to workers who sued them for the bad conditions in their labor camp. Now, the Colemans are trying to make an example out of Solis to send the message that if you speak out about prob lems on the farm, you’ll be fired and evicted, too. The Colemans are banking on the fact that consumers will continue to buy the products they and other NORPAC Food growers produce in spite of their mistreatment of farmworkers. As long as consumers buy NORPAC's FLAV-R-PAC brand frozen fruits and vegetables and Gar denburgers, which are distributed by NORPAC’s sales and distribution arm, the Colemans feel they have free reign to do as they please on the farm. But things aren't going well for the Colemans. Their phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from farm worker supporters nationwide demanding the reinstate ment of Solis and pledges of increased boycott activism until the Colemans finally sit down and negotiate with PCUN, Oregon’s farmworker union. Due to public pres sure, they’ve had to back off their demands for Solis, his wife and their four children to vacate their trailer with only a week’s notice. But more pressure is needed. NORPAC and Gardenburger products are currently be ing sold at the University. It’s time for the University to stop selling these products. Currently, over 100 stores and five universities nationwide have committed to no longer selling FLAV-R-PAC or Gardenburger products. Garden burger, by doing business with NORP AC Food Sales, the sales and distribution arm of NORP AC, is subsidizing the Colemans and all other NORP AC growers’ sales and dis tribution costs. Furthermore, Gardenburger has gone on record claiming conditions for farmworkers “weren't that bad.” Tell that to Solis. Erik Nicholson Campaign Coordinator, PCUN
