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. , ,
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