Only one candidate has formally filed to run for ASUO president so far, but three others announced plans to the Emerald to run on Thursday night.
ASUO Events Coordinator Amélie Rousseau is the only candidate who has filed to run. However, ASUO Sens. Jairo Castaneda and Alex McCafferty, along with Oregon Commentator editor emeritus CJ Ciaramella, confirmed Thursday night they plan to run.
Rousseau will run alongside sophomore Maneesh Arora on a campaign platform that will attempt to increase students’ community involvement and find a way to create more student housing.
“The U of O has accepted more freshmen for the new year than last year,” Rousseau said. “We’re already pushed to capacity.”
Rousseau, a senior from Portland, is the publications chair of the Pi Beta Phi sorority. She taught a Clark Honors Introductory Program class for two years, was a Freshman Interest Group assistant for two years and edited the arts journal at the Clark Honors College.
Arora, of Beaverton, runs an OSPIRG campaign pushing for more affordable textbooks. He is a member of the Climate Justice League, Students of the Indian Subcontinent, and formerly the Warsaw Sports Business Club.
Castaneda, who will run alongside graduate anthropology student Alex Esparza, said his campaign would strive for unity among the student body.
“It’s definitely about creating a unified whole of students and making sure the student body exists as just that, a unified whole, and making sure we have each other’s interests in mind,” Esparza said.
Esparza, of Eugene, is a co-director of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans Queer Alliance. He is also co-chair of the Oregon Student Equal Rights Alliance and sits on the ASUO’s Programs Recognition Review Committee.
Castaneda, a senior from Central Plains, was appointed to the ASUO Senate earlier in 2010. He is also the director of recruitment and retention for the campus Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, and a board member for the Oregon Students of Color Coalition. He said having spent less time than his rivals in ASUO office would not hurt his campaign.
“It’s just a kind of experience,” he said. “There are different experiences, different backgrounds. I actually think that will be an advantage.”
McCafferty will run alongside fellow junior Alden Williams. McCafferty said he would focus on three major issues: fiscal conservatism, implementing the University’s new policy for distributing student football tickets, and increasing the amount of parking on campus.
“The (University) administration sells more passes than it has spots, so we want to try to put a stop to that and try to find a way to get more spots on campus,” he said. “For some students, a car’s the only real option, and we want to make sure they have feasible means to get to campus without paying an outrageous parking pass fee.”
McCafferty, of San Jose, Calif., has been involved in the ASUO throughout his time at the University. He has served on the ASUO Senate for two years, first as its president and now as its ombudsperson. He has served on the committee that pays for student athletic tickets for three years, two of them as its chairperson, and also sits on a variety of committees.
Among those is the Emerald’s Board of Directors, which exercises no editorial control over the paper’s content.
Williams, of Philomath, is a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, of which she has been vice president. She ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the Senate in 2009.
Ciaramella, a former Emerald reporter, will run alongside former ASUO Sen. Lyzi Diamond, who is also his girlfriend. He said he had not yet hammered out the details of his platform, but that, “We’re pretty sure it involves disbanding all student programs and student contracts except the athletic department.”
“All campaigns are a joke,” he said. “We’re just the most serious of jokes. The whole ASUO is a joke. But we’re really serious about it.”
Both Castaneda and McCafferty said they planned to run at the head of slates of candidates running for different offices. Rousseau said she was running independent of
a slate.
Despite so many established figures in the ASUO declaring their interest in running, members of the student government’s Elections Board encouraged more students to file to run.
“We really just encourage everyone to run,” board spokesperson Christina Dunning said. “The more people running the better.”
Candidates for the election must file to run by March 11.
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