ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz said he and University President Dave Frohnmayer have a running joke: It’s hard to find a good University of Oregon tie.
Frohnmayer delivered the joke’s punchline on Dotters-Katz’s birthday: a silk University of Oregon tie, with yellow-and-green diagonal stripes and the University’s “Mens agitat molem” seal emblazoned on the front.
Dotters-Katz, who leaves office Sunday, calls it his favorite tie. Since receiving it in April, he has worn it with each visit to Salem under the University’s auspices, something he estimates he did 15 times in winter term alone, “many of those times working hand-in-hand with Dave,” – Frohnmayer, that is – “and meeting with legislators,” he said.
Dotters-Katz’s predecessor as ASUO president, Emily McLain, was not on a first-name basis with the University president when speaking to reporters. To her, he was always “President Frohnmayer.”
McLain was unafraid to oppose Frohnmayer and the University administration. Dotters-Katz is unafraid to embrace them. The major difference is a philosophical one – can students trust the administration? McLain said “no.” Dotters-Katz said “yes.”
Former ASUO Vice President Chii-San SunOwen said McLain governed with the belief that “the closer you get to the administration, the farther you get from students.” To Dotters-Katz, working with the administration was the way forward.
“We talk about having a cozy relationship. What could have been bad about that?” Dotters-Katz said. “Where did they change rules? Where did they do things that are bad for students? Nowhere.”
Instead, Dotters-Katz said students benefited from his relationship with the administration and his personal friendships with Frohnmayer and other administrators, such as Vice President for Student Affairs Robin Holmes and EMU Director of Student Activities Gregg Lobisser. He credited those relationships in part for the initiatives he calls his most successful – 24-hour library service, late-night bus service, and a spring-term $100 reduction of the incidental fee, which funds student government.
“Student voice isn’t with Cimmeron Gillespie and the radicals who want to see the incidental fee doubled every two or three years,” Dotters-Katz said. “It’s a ridiculous and disrespectful notion to say that we didn’t listen to student voice. Because we did what students really wanted. They’re talking about the students who are in the EMU and want bigger budgets. We’re talking about the 22,000 students we represent. We did what they wanted.”
Gillespie, a campus activist who has often clashed with Dotters-Katz, said he does not support doubling the fee.
The ASUO presidency was Dotters-Katz’s first position in the ASUO, and during the election he touted his outsider credentials. Lobisser, who worked closely with Dotters-Katz, said being uninitiated helped him get things done. “It helped him accomplish things that I think make him a pretty successful guy as ASUO president,” Lobisser said.
Lobisser said Dotters-Katz consulted him and other administrators frequently. “We were able to kick ideas around in a way that was a lot of fun,” Lobisser said. “It was fun for me to hear his perspectives and I enjoy my relationship with him.”
But while Dotters-Katz consulted frequently with administrators, fellow student leaders said he seldom sought their advice.
“(Dotters-Katz had) no regard or consideration for those that he worked with,” ASUO Sen. Deborah Bloom said. “It was pretty upsetting to see our collective morale weared down by his deprecations. It definitely affected how we acted as a body when we had to answer to someone who showed us no respect.”
Dotters-Katz called Bloom’s appointment the worst of his tenure, saying, “Egos of that size don’t have a place in the ASUO.”
During his time in office, Dotters-Katz clashed frequently with the ASUO Senate, fueling animosity that stemmed from his decision fall term to reduce the incidental fee using $2.5 million in excess money generated by over-enrollment.
“A lot of people, like myself, saw a lack of attempts to get the students’ perspective,” SunOwen said.
Dotters-Katz and SunOwen have acknowledged that they have an adversarial relationship, but the president has long spoken highly of the ASUO senator who will succeed him as president on Monday, Emma Kallaway.
“Emma and I don’t agree on a lot of things and I’m fairly certain that a lot of what I’ve done will be kind of turned back a bit, but I’m incredibly proud of what she’s accomplished in her time at the ASUO,” Dotters-Katz said.
Kallaway said Dotters-Katz has not sufficiently consulted students on issues like the 14-percent increase in tuition projected for the next two years. Dotters-Katz said he supports the increase because he believes students must make sacrifices to deal with decreasing school budgets. “I’m not in support,” Kallaway said. “I think that access to education is something I’m going to lobby for.”
Kallaway called McLain’s relationship with the administration “more effective.”
“She not only consulted with the administration, but she told the students what she was saying to the administration,” Kallaway said. “There are times when (Dotters-Katz) has chosen not to share.”
Kallaway said that as president she will relate respectfully with the administration. However, she said she will be unafraid to fight administrators. “I’m looking to keep student government autonomous,” she said.
Robert D’Andrea contributed to this report.
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UO, ASUO presidents closer than most
Daily Emerald
May 21, 2009
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