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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 25, 2001)
Wednesday Editor in chief: Jack Clifford Managing Editor: Jessica Blanchard Newsroom: (541) 346-5511 Room 300, Erb Memorial Union P.O. box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403 E-maii: ode@oregon.uoregon.edu EDITORIAL EDITOR: MICHAEL J. KLECKNER opededitor@journalist.com May we offer A FEW SUGGESTIONS? The ASUO elections are over and now it’s time for the Emer ald editorial board to offer suggestions. Nilda Brooklyn and Joy Nair emerged the winners of the ASUO Executive race, but only after a somewhat haphazard campaign season. Perhaps it was the shortened time span of the election, due to a hastily assembled elections board, but we were left with the im pression that any real campaigning happened behind closed doors. We certainly didn’t see it on the streets, with the students. Except for one or two days when the ASUO sponsored a candi dates fair, and again before the election, all of the vote-for-me ef forts seemed to be aimed at ASUO student groups. A more concerted effort by all the candidates to directly engage the masses of the student body would be nice, especially as every one talked extensively about representing every student voice. In the pages of the Emerald and in campaign literature, the idea of in volving every student in the grand experiment of campus democ racy was rampant. But we saw little new and exciting ideas or campaigns to actual ly reach out to those students. Next year (and here’s our first sug gestion to the new executive) let’s hope there will be enough ad vance planning to allow candidates to try to reconnect students with the government that distributes more than $8 million of their money every year. In other words, do the housekeeping. Get the ASUO rules and the election rules clarified and watertight, so that next year we don’t have to put up with grievances about griev ances regarding misunderstood rules. With that said, let’s look ahead to more positive things. Brooklyn and Nair were very promising candidates, and we hope they will become capable leaders. Besides getting fully immersed in the rules and policies that make student government run, we’d like the new executives to focus on the campaign ideas that made them good candidates (and we have a few suggestions of our own). So Nilda and Joy, here they are: First, it is absolutely imperative that every student group, every clique, contingent, stakeholder and “traditionally underrepresent ed” group feel welcome and have their concerns heard in the ASUO. This was promised during the campaign, it was an issue that affected our endorsement, and it’s important if the ASUO ever wants to be relevant to the 91 percent of students who didn’t vote. Currently, we have the sense that many student groups talk mostly to themselves. The ASUO leaders should be creating inter action, getting student groups to work together on projects and have conversations about difficult issues that so often divide us. A once-a-month forum involving different student groups, where they could have a chance to talk to each other, instead of simply bringing their personal concerns to the ASUO, would be invalu able. Maybe provide food and a hot topic, and an old-fashioned “salon” could take place, with ideas and information flowing freelv. This idea needs to be applied to the gen eral student body, as well — to the people who aren’t involved in student groups. Cheesy as it sounds, ice cream socials are a fun and low key way to get students to interact. Bringing lecturers to campus is a good way to educate students, but only if students come. Creating friend ships first at a social gathering can en courage students to attend lectures in the future, because they know other peo ple who attend them. as to the renters rights campaign, why mi * not stand in front of Johnson Hall in the af- V/ ternoon a few days in a row and solicit stu dents’ concerns about their landlords? Make \ it likt a mock protest, and tell passing stu- 1 dents to write down one thing they would like 1 to see included in a housing code. Then take that to the City Council. To improve relations with University Presi dent Dave Frohnmayer, we’d like to see a sugges tion box outside the ASUO office, where stu dents can leave their suggestions for Frohnmayer. Then meet with him once a month to talk about students’ concerns. Students and the police need to understand each other better, and currently they only seem to interact when things are bad. Invite police to sit in on an ASUO staff meeting or two. Perhaps you could go on a few ride-alongs with police * and set up a system so that other students could i V.V ■ ’ ■ get that firsthand experience, as well. Maybe it’s because our windows face the EMU Amphitheater, but we’re tired of DJs and bands. It’s not that music is bad, but that’s all that ever happens down there. How about having a free speech open mic once a month. Except for hate speech, allow any one to say anything for two minutes. It facilitates dialogue, and it’s a lot of fun to hear what’s on students’ minds. Parking is always a problem. Maybe the ASUO could invest in a hundred or so used bikes. Lock them all over campus with the same-keyed lock, and set up a key check-out system for students. You could take a bike from the EMU and ride it to class. You could take a different bike after class and ride it to 13th Avenue, etc. Sys tems similar to this work all over the world. Finally, we strongly encourage you to sit down with the other candidates and gather their ideas. Most of the candidates had good ideas, and it would show you were concerned about every student if you listened to what they had to say. Wait a minute. Now that we think about it, we could have saved a lot of words if we had just said, “Do the opposite of Jay Breslow and you’ll be great.” Just kidding, Jay. This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald editorial board. Responses can be sent to ode@oregon.uoregon.edu. Frohnmayer’s ad arguments not persuasive “TT "T*niversity President Dave Frohn I mayer has criticized David I Horowitz’s argument that “repa rations for slavery is a bad idea— and racist, too” (“Our purpose is higher than that of Horowitz,” ODE, April 20). Frohn mayer makes three claims: That Horowitz’s purpose may be to sell books, that “Horowitz lobs simple catch phrases and slogans into a set of issues that are complex and divisive” and that “Our purpose is a higher one” than his. Frohnmayer’s claims are not persuasive. He admits that he does not know what Horowitz’s purposes are. But even if Horowitz’s only purpose is to sell his book, what’s wrong with that? The University of Oregon Bookstore shows no guilt in trying to sell books every day of the week. Horowitz may be a typically poorly paid professor who only wants to feed his family. But more importantly, speculation about Horowitz’s purposes is an argument ad hominem and irrelevant to any assessment of his argu ment. He may have evil purposes, but his ar gument may still be sound. As to Frohnmayer s second claim, an ad vertisement for a book should not itself be a book. It must be brief and avoid technical de tail. just look at any dust jacket. Moreover, in this case, Horowitz does not “lob simple catch phrases. ” He provides us with a full page summary of his 10 premises. People who are interested in more detail can always buy his book. Finally, Frohnmayer claims that “our pur pose” is “higher” than Horowitz’s. But it is a mystery to me how he can make this claim when he doesn’t know what Horowitz’s pur pose is. However, he does tell us what “our” purpose is. It is “to build community, to hon or identity within community and to engage in thoughtful and respectful conversation. ” I’m disappointed to learn this because it has the frantic high pitch of multicultural politics, and I had hoped this fine institution would avoid partisan politics and would re main dedicated to'the purpose given to it by the state of Oregon—higher education. But times change and partisan political ideologies suddenly look as pure as the driv en snow. The best that can be hoped for now is that everyone will understand what is go ing on. Not everyone will be pleased. Students may be angered to see that there is an institutional conspiracy to get inside of their political heads, parents may wake up to the fact that they are paying dearly for the political indoctrination of their children, the faculty and staff may be insulted by Frohnmayer’s assumption that he has the right to engage in politics on their behalf, and legislators and the gener al public may discover that they are subsi dizing and giving tax benefits to an institu tion that may be opposed to their best interests. As someone somewhere said, “Any at tempt to use the university as a means for the realization of putative moral ends sub verts the very institution which makes it possible for individuals to understand what ends are moral.” Or as someone else has said more poetically, “A university has no mind; therefore, it should have no „ mouth.” Henry Crimmel lives in Eugene. , , I i u i iiil t J i i i c
