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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 13, 2001)
ASUO continued from page 1 hires people that he thinks have good ideas and are going good places,” Sul livan said. “Then he backs off and lets them go.” Breslow even said that he “fol lows their lead a little bit.” Following footsteps But giving such freedom to the staff has resulted in Breslow and Magner failing to pursue a major campaign of their own. Last year at this time, former ASUO President and Vice President Wylie Chen and Mitra Anoushiravani had made headway on their campaign promises, including improved rela tions with the Eugene Police Depart ment and better campus lighting. Since their run for the Executive office, Breslow and Magner said, their focus has evolved into contin uing the campaigns Chen and Anoushiravani initiated, such as campus democracy. “In some cases we wanted to keep the momentum going,” Breslow said. “We didn’t want to reinvent the wheel.” But Breslow did say he wanted the ASUO Executive to become a politically active organization dur ing his term, and has dedicated en ergy to that end, specifically around issues involving campus-communi ty relations and campus democracy, concerns that gained considerable attention during last year’s push to join the Worker Rights Consortium. But Sullivan, who has been in charge of filling the empty student seats on several University commit tees, said he feels as though the worker rights issue has “been dropped from the slate entirely.” Campus democracy has had a little more attention: 90 percent of the empty committee spots have been filled, a rate Breslow said is a record. Even so, some staff members have felt they lacked a main direction and have wished there could be something more central coming from the Executive leaders. Although campus and communi ty relations and diversity are “burn ing issues” for Breslow, Tanner said last term he would have liked to have seen a push for “something new — something to unify the staff around. ” He said that to some extent there was unification around the special response fee and Weaving New Be ginnings, the annual diversity re cruitment and retention banquet. Tanner said he understood why that big push hasn’t happened. “When you’re a president here, you really can’t do all this stuff, be cause you have all these tasks you have to do just because you’re presi dent,” Tanner said. Though the lack of a big push is by no means detrimental, Tanner said, it would be nice for Breslow and Magner to have something to call their own. “It’s what makes you stick out,” Tanner said. “It’s their legacy.” Sullivan also said that while all the small tasks Breslow and Magner have to get done make it hard to focus on one main campaign, he wished they would contribute more as leaders. “They could be more produc tive,” Sullivan said. “Their position is like diving into bureaucracy, more or less. Still, I would like to see more proactive ideas.” Having fun, staying busy Even though they haven’t stood solidly behind a single campaign, Breslow and Magner have played their parts in the major campaigns of the Executive office. “I’m going to blush when I say this, but one of the things I loved was building the really big ballot box,” Breslow said of the 19-foot green box that stood outside the Executive of fice last October and November. Breslow added that it was one of the only things Tanner and ASUO Legislative Organizer Melissa Unger would “let him do” in a suc cessful voter participation drive that enveloped much of fall term. The box is representative of what Breslow and Magner have found to be their greatest strength this year: coming up with “crazy ideas” to put a new spin on an old campaign. During fall term, Breslow and Manger rode a tandem bicycle around campus wearing red capes with gold trim—their giant first ini tials plastered on the back — and they dug out an old sno-cone ma chine from EMU storage and used it during the voter-participation drive. “I think we’ve been anything but boring,” Breslow said. But Breslow said he has other strengths outside his crazy ideas, and one of the stronger ones is be ing personable. In addition, because he “grew up” in the Multicultural Center and has connections to student groups, Bres low said he has a built-in network of people to call in certain situations. A weakness, Breslow said, is that in focusing on the big picture, he and Magner have sometimes forgot ten the details. During fall term, two students at tempted a recall of Breslow, accus ing him of partisanship during an Oct. 27 candidate fair and of leaving several ASUO positions open for more than 30 days, the time limit that ASUO rules dictate for leaving positions unfilled. Breslow said he has trouble getting things done on time, and that one of the biggest mistakes he’s made all year was not hiring the elections co ordinator on time. Shantell Rice, ASUO elections coordinator, was hired at the start of winter term. Looking ahead, the focus for the future revolves around many sepa rate issues, ranging from the Oregon budget for higher education to racial profiling, the pair said. But, Breslow said, those goals could always change. “It’s a really crazy campus. 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