ASUO President Ben Eckstein and University President Richard Lariviere held a ceremony at the Many Nations Longhouse@@http://longhouse.uoregon.edu/@@ Monday afternoon to formally sign the Clark Document for the 2011-12 school year.
The Clark Document is an agreement between the University administration and the ASUO that recognizes the ASUO as the official student government of the University and sets up the basic outline of the process by which incidental fee money is allocated by the ASUO.
The document’s goals are summarized in one of its first sentences: “The University of Oregon acknowledges the right of recognized student government, in exercise of its delegated power and through its constitution, to elect a body to make incidental fee recommendations to the (Oregon State Board of Higher Education).”
“The Clark Document is a declaration of student autonomy,” Eckstein said during the ceremony. “The document we sign today is ever the culmination of a long history of student activism. Students have fought hard to ensure that we have a say in University decision-making.”
Student government has existed at the University since the late 1800s, Eckstein said, but its relationship with the administration had been nebulous. The student government’s level of authority and autonomy varied, and at one point the ASUO was considered a nonprofit corporation under Oregon law.
This changed during the late ’60s and early ’70s. In the wake of increasing protests and demands for student autonomy, University President Robert Clark@@http://honors.uoregon.edu/content/chc-history@@ and the student government signed an agreement penned by then-law school professor Dave Frohnmayer@@http://www.law.uoregon.edu/ol/fall2010/frohnmayer/@@ that outlined the powers of the ASUO and the relationship between it and the University administration. Altered yearly since then, it is still the basis of the ASUO’s authority to allocate and control the incidental fee.
“The Clark Document has been the primary governing document of the ASUO for decades, and it stands as an important protection of our student autonomy and a meaningful reminder of our rich history of student activism and participation,” Eckstein said.
This year’s document includes changes that provide more student control over the operations of the EMU, student government contracts allocated through the Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee and the use of over-realized funds, ASUO Communications Director Andrew Rogers said.@@http://asuo.uoregon.edu/executive.php?a=12#toc1109@@
Rogers also said that the new document will place the Building Fee Committee back under student control.
“In recent years, this committee has been overseen by the Division of Student Affairs, even though state regulations require that it is run by the recognized student government,” he said. “This is the committee which approved the use of $13 million in student building fees for the EMU/SRC renovation projects. With the Clark Document changes, students and the ASUO will take the lead in representation on this committee.”
Beyond the changes to the document, Eckstein says this is a moment of celebration of the philosophy of shared governance and its implementation at the university.
“Of our many campus traditions, this is among my favorites,” Eckstein said. “We do not have many moments set aside like this when we can appreciate the work we all do and celebrate our collective student power and its ability to make this campus a better place.”