Oregon Student Association pushes for voters
■After a successful spring registration campaign, the OSA
looks to the fall to sign up more young voters
By Jeremy Lang
Oregon Daily Emerald
With the help of some high-pro
file Oregon representatives such
as Peter DeFazio, D-Eugene, the
ASUO signed up 250 students in
its voter registration campaign,
which ended last week.
It may not seem like that big of
a number, but it’s a huge differ
ence compared to the single-digit
numbers posted by other Oregon
public schools, such as Oregon
State University.
“We tooled them,” ASUO Vice
President Mitra Anoushiravani
said at the April 26 Student Sen
ate meeting.
But the spring campaign to reg
ister students for the November
election is only a precursor to the
upcoming fall registration cam
paign, organized by the Oregon
Student Association. It has a goal
of registering 27,500 college and
university students and an extra
5,000 non-college youth before
elections begin.
“In the fall, it’s going to be
huge," OSA spokesman John
Wykoff said. “It’s probably our
No. 1 priority.’’
ASUO Federal Affairs Coordi
nator Robin Miller, who helped
organize the spring campaign at
the University, said extra organi
zation and help from Oregon
Reps. DeFazio; Vicki Walker, D
Eugene; and Floyd Prozanski, D
Eugene, and State Sen. Tony Cor
coran, D-Cottage Grove, led to the
high showing.
“We just had people out there,”
she said.
But Miller added that while
250 registered students may seem
like a lot compared to some of the
other schools, she was hoping for
more.
“We faced the obstacle that stu
dents aren’t
thinking
about vot
ing right
now ... it
slips to the
wayside,”
she said.
She said
the ASUO is getting ready for the
big fall push and, among other
ideas, is working on a campaign
to send a registration card to every
University student, and she is
confident the ASUO can meet its
goal of 5,000 registered students
by Oct. 15.
Wykoff said the OSA is also
planning some events. He said
that most of them will be straight
voter registration campaigns in
stead of concerts or events where
a registration booth is set up as
well. He said a more expensive
concert usually produces fewer
voters than a campaign where
voter registration is the primary
goal.
“It’s not as sexy, but it produces
a lot more registered voters,”
Wykoff said.
Vietnam
continued from page 1
As part of educational ex
change groups, Fry has traveled
to Vietnam six times, most re
cently in January when he taught
at the country’s largest public
university, Van Lang University
in Ho Chi Minh City.
“I have been treated so well,”
said Fry, a political science pro
fessor.
Reflecting on the war that ac
counted for deaths of three mil
lion Vietnamese and 58,000
Americans, Ramsing called it a
“tremendous waste.”
The Vietnamese are trying to
“put the war behind them and
move on,” Ramsing said.
Being a protester
in a time of war
Philosophy Professor Cheyney
Ryan, co-chairwoman of the Uni
versity Committee on Peace
Studies, strongly opposed the
war as a student at Harvard Col
lege in the 1960s.
“We tried to disrupt the war
making capacity as much as we
possibly could,” said Ryan, who
was eventually expelled from the
school for peaceful protests. “The
thing I feel a lot more now than I
did then is the utter pointless
ness of the war. I tend to think
now that the issues were all ones
that could’ve been worked out if
this country had not been so
racist and imperialist toward that
part of the world.”
Similarly, Fry protested the
war as a student at Princeton
University. After receiving his
graduate degree in 1966, Fry
joined the Peace Corps as a vol
unteer and headed to Thailand,
where he recalls seeing Ameri
can bombers taking off every
eight minutes.
“We still don’t get it,” Fry said.
“We need to better understand
other countries.”
Because of the anti-war
protests, the U.S. government
changed its policy toward foreign
affairs, Ryan said. Prior to mili
tary action now, federal officials
make sure there is public sup
port.
“The reason why the Vietnam
War is one of the defining events
of the second half of the 20th
century is that it shifted the pa
rameters — it made another Viet
nam less likely," Ryan said.
“That’s due entirely to the anti
war movement.”
While Ryan attributes the end
of the Vietnam conflict to the
anti-war movement, he admits to
being somewhat erratic at the
time.
"You’re very brave when
you’re 20; you think you’re in
vincible,” Ryan said. “In retro
spect, this all looks kind of coura
geous, but it was really a function
of stupidity. And I don’t know
how my parents tolerated it.”
After 25 years of reflection,
Ryan said many lessons can be
learned from the longest war in
American history.
“People of my generation have
an obligation on the basis of what
we’ve learned from the Vietnam
experience to talk about it and try
to make sure it doesn’t happen
again,” Ryan said.
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