Name: Andy Dolberg
Age: 21
Major: Mathematics and economics
Hometown: Portland
Year in school: Junior
 
Name: Ben Hartley
Age: 20
Major: Biology
Hometown: Redmond
Year in school: Sophomore
 
Emerald: Have you been charged with any criminal activities?
Andy Dolberg: Recently (jokingly)? No.
Ben Hartley: No
E: Briefly summarize your platform.
AD: The major point of our platform is the elimination of the collection of the incidental fee, that is the only plan that we have for our campaign. That’s what we’re about. That’s pretty much the only thing we’re focusing on because we believe that’s the right thing to do.
E: So you want to totally eliminate it?
AD: Not necessarily. Even legally, or whatever, even change anything. What we want to do is save the students of the University of Oregon as much money as possible. Stop the expropriation of their hard-earned, ya know…
BH: And if legal things would prevent us from doing so, we’d just try to make it to minimize as much as possible. We feel that there’s a lot of overuse of it for things. You know, trying to use it as efficiently as possible because there’s a lot of things with this that we don’t feel are as efficient as possible, or not very efficient right now.
E: What qualifies you for these positions?
AD: Well for myself, I’d call myself an amateur libertarian, I suppose. My economics research and also my political research for the past four or five years I think really helped me to understand the way governments work, the way pseudo-governments, like the ASUO, work. Basically, increasing their size and breadth until infinity. Basically, like a parasite on the host: just sucking and sucking and growing bigger. To maximize its own benefits, to maximize its own economic security…and that would be why I’m qualified.
BH: This is only my second year, so I haven’t had that much experience with the University, but in my few years here I’ve worked with the (Oregon) Commentator and other organizations, I’ve been able to sit in on a lot of PFC meetings and senate meetings, and so I’ve kind of become familiar with how the student government works. I’ve been reading, also through the Commentator, I’ve been reading all the other campus publications and really following campus politics pretty closely over the last two years.
E: Do you have any previous leadership experience you want to talk about?
AD: I’m a sergeant in the United States Marine Corps Reserve.
BH: I was the parliamentarian my senior year in National Honor Society.
E: Why do you want this job?
AD: I just want to help students at the University. I see them; I see all the kids in my class every day. They come to school, they come from all over Oregon and other parts of the United States and they work their butts off doing homework, experiencing and suffering under all the stresses of school, and then every single year we have the national inflation and then we have the inflation of tuition, and then we have the inflation of the incidental fee. Times are hard in college, especially these days when college education is getting more expensive. The $576 we may be able to save them is just one piece and it would be really appreciated. I think that would save everyone on their books. I think the majority of kids here, the majority of students, don’t spend more than that on their textbooks every year. That’s more than a month’s amount of rent for me, that could definitely go a long way, especially if a parent lost their job or is having medical problems. We’re here to help students at the University.
BH: I’d also like to add that I think we have the outside perspective, kind of like how Adam and Kyla said the year they were running, and that we haven’t been involved with all the bureaucracy and student government. I don’t think you’ve (to Dolberg) had a thing, and I haven’t had a student government position either, and so I think a lot of this has to do with self-interest on the part of the candidates and they’re doing it just so they can have this on their resume, maybe. Or just so they can say, “I was the president or the vice president,” or maybe a senator, or what have you. They won’t say it, but I think that a lot of people are doing it for themselves first, and the students second, because they say, “This college is going to run itself, no matter what, they have administrators to do that. They have an extra position that I can hold as more of a figurehead, and not really have that much of a function. That would be great for me.” That’s not where we’re coming from at all. We’re not really in this for ourselves at all, because we’re not really involved in student government, as members of the senate or anything like that so we don’t have personal interests as far as that goes.
AD: I said in my position statement in the Voter’s Guide that I would give up all pay, or all stipend money, that I receive as President and I would create some kind of scholastic competition, like a writing contest, where students could write in to me, or maybe I’d create an impartial panel – to put all the money I receive to that scholarship fund to buy books for college kids. I’m going to try not to take a single cent if I’m elected. I will give up all pay, and all the perks or whatever.
E: What should be the role of student government in city, state, federal and international levels of politics?
BH: Personally, I think that student government really has no role in international politics. I think the whole student senate thing with having the Iran nuclear program and having the stance against that, I guess it’s a noble purpose. My only experience with that was through reading about it in the Emerald and other magazines on campus. It seems ludicrous. They wasted an entire meeting on deciding whether to do that, and they said it was one of those heartfelt issues. Student government at UO won’t have any bearing on what they do. Maybe it’s a nice gesture, being active like that, but on the other hand it’s not going to make any difference. Really, as far as Iran’s nuclear program goes, I guarantee they have no idea whether the UO even exists.
AD: I thought it was extremely self-centered, selfish, haughty. Definitely an insult that they spent any time whatsoever on this topic. I think it is highly insulting to me, and I think other students felt it was highly insulting that they use so much of our money and they go play games. Make-believe that while they’re on the clock, supposedly working for us, making-believe that they’re someone important – it’s a big joke to them – it’s fantasy land to them. Disgusting.
BH: Personally, I think that as far as it should go is the city because University of Oregon is a huge part of Eugene and Eugene definitely wouldn’t be a town without the UO here. Maybe in the state, because UO is one of the biggest universities in the state.
E: Your final question is, critique student government’s handling of the Westmoreland issue. What would you do in this position?
AD: The Westmoreland issue is the University’s policy. The University needs to do what’s best at providing an education to the students here and it seems to me that the University doesn’t know if keeping Westmoreland is a good thing, or selling it, they’re kind of confused. They need to figure out their mind. I don’t think the ASUO is going to really influence them that much, just because of the magnitude of this.
BH: The ASUO deals with the incidental fee, and that’s the money that they are in charge of, but when you start coming to other money, such as with the sale of Westmoreland, I think that it’s important for them to have a stance on it, but I think it’s an administrative thing and I don’t think the ASUO really has a place deciding that. Students are being displaced and it is kind of ruining their lives right now, if you live in Westmoreland, but that’s also the administration’s job to provide suitable accom
modations to those people that are being displaced.