ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz will try to make OSPIRG a student program or defund it entirely, earmark half of all over-realized funds to lower the incidental fee, and have a cooperative relationship with the University administration during his time in office, according to an open letter sent to University President Dave Frohnmayer June 25.
It is constitutionally mandated that the student body president release his or her criteria for “fulfillment of duties” each year, and it has generally been used as an opportunity to reiterate campaign pledges to constituents.
“I was writing it up in response to a conversation we’d had, and I figured it was appropriate to share these goals with the general public,” Dotters-Katz said of the letter.
The letter begins by thanking Frohnmayer and his assistant David R. Hubin for meeting with Dotters-Katz, ASUO Vice President Johnny Delashaw and their chief of staff, Athan Papailiou.
At a glance
| Promises from the president Write the over-realized process into the ASUO Constitution ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz wants to mandate a standing committee and clear guidelines for the allocation of over-realized incidental fees students pay each term. He also wants to require at least 50 percent of the over-realized funds be used to lower the incidental fee. Reform the ASUO Constitution Court Dotters-Katz wants to require that any changes to the court’s rules be approved by the Student Senate, increase the number of justices from 5 to 7, mandate summaries of the rulings be published and create a more tangible deadline for the court to rule. Create a bookstore foundation to lower textbook cost This would create an endowment where returns on investments would pay for the textbooks of randomly selected students. Make OSPIRG a student group to “redirect” its funding OSPIRG has a $117,000 budget as a contracted service of the ASUO. Dotters-Katz wants the organization to be switched from a contracted service to a student program, which would require much stricter oversight of its budget and disallow any funds from being spent off campus. OSPIRG’s primary goal is to hire lawyers, lobbyists and researchers to fight for student interests, making off-campus spending necessary, OSPIRG members have argued. Dotters-Katz wrote that if switching the group’s status is not possible, “we will push to redirect these funds.” |
“As I stated in our meeting, I believe that having a (discreet) line of communication between the ASUO executive and your office will enable my staff and I to work on concrete and feasible goals, while avoiding unnecessary public muckraking,” Dotters-Katz wrote. “Speaking freely, the ‘us vs. them’ mentality that was presented to Johnny and I from prior executives seems to have been born out of convenient public posturing in which an easily blamable institution (central administration) was used to benefit the ASUO.
“Yet in reality this unhealthy relationship only served the personalities of a few student politicians in an attempt to play off paranoid fears of the student body, and push blame unto someone else.”
The letter was e-mailed to the Student Senate, ASUO programs and the Emerald.
Kari Herinckx and Ella Barrett both served in the previous ASUO executive and are now continuing in their same roles for Dotters-Katz. Herinckx ran for president against Dotters-Katz on a platform of giving students a voice in the University administration’s decision-making.
Herinckx said that if confrontation was the goal of the previous executive, she was never aware of it.
“The times I was in communication with the administration it was actually really positive,” Herinckx said, noting her role on a presidential advisory committee and her talks with administrators about making ethnic studies a University department.
Dotters-Katz said he was not referencing any specific individuals in his letter. He said no one should expect the administration’s agenda to align with the ASUO’s and that when there is disagreement, “there are more productive strategies than conducting a war in the newspaper.”
The letter included Dotters-Katz’ most forthcoming statement to date on the funding of the Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group, or OSPIRG. The political advocacy group currently has a $117,000 contract with the ASUO. Most of that money pays the salaries of activists and researchers in Portland, which draws the ire of fiscal conservatives who want student dollars to stay on campus.
“The complete lack of transparency and responsible accounting of this contract is troubling,” Dotters-Katz wrote. He plans to try to shift the organization from a contracted service to being recognized as a student program, where every budget line item would be scrutinized. OSPIRG has opposed such a structure in the past.
“If this (shift) proves to be impossible, we will push to redirect these funds,” Dotters-Katz wrote.
Perhaps the most consequential policy overhaul suggested in the letter is to write into the ASUO Constitution the process for distributing over-realized funds and mandate that 50 percent of the funds be used to lower the incidental fee students pay each term.
Over-realized funds are accumulated when enrollment exceeds projections and more student fees are collected than is necessary to fund student government. Over-realized funds topped $750,000 in the 2007-08 academic year.
Dotters-Katz implied in his letter that the lack of set procedures for doling out over-realized funds creates ethically shaky ground on which student senators give funds to constituencies of their choosing immediately following elections. He said his closest advisers, including Papailiou and former Oregon Commentator Editor in Chief Ted Niedermeyer, urged reforming the process. Niedermeyer has said reforming the process is the most important issue in the ASUO and the true litmus test of Dotters-Katz as a reformer.
Dotters-Katz also seeks to add two seats to the Constitution Court and help expand the court’s institutional memory. His plan to keep Knight Library open 24 hours a day, five days a week was also given cursory mention. Dotters-Katz said the plan is on-track to being implemented, and the library staff has alerted vendors to its increased needs.
Dotters-Katz plans to run what he says is the largest voter registration drive in University history. He wants to register 10,000 voters by the October deadline for the general election. He would also like to host a debate for U.S. Senate candidates in the fall.
“I very much appreciate receiving this outline of your goals for your administration,” Frohnmayer responded via e-mail. “The goals are thoughtful, appropriately ambitious, and couched in a very productive tone.”
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