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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 22, 2001)
'7* 1 • y z.z., z.ijvj i — Senate OK’s budget hike for Athletic Department ■ A 5 percent raise was set despite the original request By Emily Gust Oregon Daily Emerald Compared to last week’s debate over the EMU’s budget, which last ed longer than an hour, it took the ASUO Student Senate less than 10 minutes to present and vote on next year’s budget for the Athletic Department Finance Committee. In the past few weeks, the ADFC reported a possible stalemate be tween itself and the Athletic De partment. The department wanted a 12 percent increase in its student incidental fee funding. The senate, however, approved a 5 percent in crease last fall, as recommended by ADFC senators. In the end, the senate granted the ADFC $1,092,672, which is $52,032 more than its budget this year — exactly the 5 percent ap proved in the fall. “We haven’t given the Athletic Department an increase since 1996 or 1997,” said Sen. Greg Zimel, who sits on the ADFC. “Mean while, their price of tickets has sky rocketed.” Senate President Peter Watts ex plained that the “good-faith agree ment” between the Athletic Depart ment and the ADFC was that students pay 50 percent of the “fair market value” of athletic tickets. Right now, he said, they are paying less than 40 percent. “We can’t maintain 0 percent in creases when ticket prices are going up,” Watts said. The ADFC made another “good faith agreement” with the depart ment to continue increasing its budget substantially throughout the next few years until students are paying 50 percent of ticket val ues. Negotiations are ongoing over whether the department will charge for two pre-season games before school begins in the fall — games that are not currently fund ed by the incidental fee. In other business, it was a night of returned visitors as two groups that tried and failed in the past fi nally left the senate with their spe cial requests granted. The Student Bar Association came before the senate a few weeks ago to ask for $9,232 to help initiate a law school yearbook. The senate granted the request — less $1,500 from the original amount — but Turn to Senate, page 5A Candidates continued from page 1A percent increase, so lobbying around that, getting support throughout Oregon is very impor tant to us. [Nilda] I feel like when educa tion is attacked in little ways, it af fects all students and all educa tion. So making sure there’s not just a focus on U of O for U of O, that we work on a statewide level to make sure all education is ac cessible. Q: What is your definition of student activism? A: The ability to challenge those around you to question your own reality and the reality that is pre sented to you by the faculty, by the media, by all other facets that cre ate the U of O experience. I think having fun, too. This is the time that I’m not responsible for anyone else but myself, so being able to challenge myself and those around me is a really unique and privi leged experience. Q: How do you define diversity, and how do you plan to bring to gether the diverse voices on cam pus? A: [Joy] Being a student of color, that’s automatically the first thing I would think about. But that was actually what I thought about be fore I came to the University. Now that I’m here, it’s different thoughts, it’s different ideas. For us, it’s building coalitions with dif ferent student groups and different voices. [Nilda] Both of us are in a unique opportunity simply be cause we were both volunteers and interns with the ASUO diver sity team, and now as staff mem bers, almost every single job I do includes five different people who work at five different offices. So just continuing those coalitions that are already built. And there’s real specific plans that have been brought out for the last 10 years by the administration — actual blue prints of how we can diversify this campus — and unfortunately, there seems to be this committee process of “let’s recreate a plan that has already been created,” so my goal is to make sure things aren’t bogged down in committee processes; spending more student time holding the administration accountable for things they said they were going to do five years ago —10 years ago. Q: If student groups were at odds with each other, how would you resolve the conflict? A: One of the big reasons stu dent groups get into conflicts is there are real barriers of communi cation. For instance, I wouldn’t say there’s a lot of communication between an office like Greek Life and an office like the ASUO. Un fortunately, lots of times, student groups get into this feeling that they are a separate, autonomous organization outside the spectrum of being a student group. Things like program council meetings, which were originally set up to make sure those lines of communi cation were always open, are not really working. It’s the ASUO’s job to branch places where those natu ral bridges aren’t naturally created. So it would be our job to make sure that Greek Life and the Black Student Union know who each other are. Q: If there was one thing you could change about the University instantly, what would it be? A: [Nilda] I think I would intro duce a lot more administrators to the average student and have them spend a day with an average stu dent going through their routine. I feel like there’s such distance be tween administrative decisions that affect the average student on a daily basis and the actuality of what it means to be a U of O stu dent — like the logistics and the nitty-gritty of a day of being an U of O student. I would just like to bring them out of a sheltered realm of administrative offices — this is what my class schedule looks like, this is how much 1 work to pay tu ition, this is how late I stay up to do homework. Q: Recent history shows a tense relationship between the ASUO Executive and University Presi dent Dave Frohnmayer. Do you plan on improving that relation ship and, if so, how? A: I have met Dave Frohnmayer once, and he’s actually very nice. I think tensions are there because both sides have dug their heels in and have decided, “This is as far as I’m going to move.” I think we have a right to be somewhat frus trated with him. But I also see Dave Frohnmayer often times be ing labeled as somebody who can change something that’s not really in his control. I would like to work with him on things he can change, the things we can change together. President Frohnmayer does not control our tuition at all. But the average student might not know that, so educating students about what President Frohnmayer can and can’t do for us, and then work ing on the things he can do. Q: How would you do things differently than current President Jay Breslow and Vice President Holly Magner? A: I think there’s a different sense of leadership style between the tw7o of us. It’s kind of interest ing because we’re on his staff. One thing that I totally admire that he did do was he hired an incredible staff and gave them a lot of inde pendence to do incredible cam paigns. I would like to repeat his amazing hires.
