The Meeting
On Wednesday night, ASUO senators unanimously approved a resolution that will request student involvement in University restructuring discussions, nominated a new representative for the Programs Recognition Review Committee, nominated a new representative for University Senate and discussed the process for handling the over-realized fund.
The Decisions
The restructuring discussion is based on University President Richard Lariviere’s “White Paper,” wherein he suggested selling $1 billion worth of bonds rather than receiving state funds. This was an attempt by Lariviere to stabilize tuition prices in order to make them more predictable.
The resolution was created by the ASUO Senate Restructuring Committee but doesn’t take any direct stances on the issues involved. Instead, the resolution stipulates that the ASUO Senate would like “inclusion of student leaders and representatives in decisions pertaining to the affairs of the Oregon University System…”
ASUO Sen. Laura Hinman asked those presenting the resolution, Sen. Brian Powell and ASUO President Amelie Rousseau, why students, staff and faculty were included in stipulations, but not administration.
“As a student, I think it’s important that they are included,” Hinman said. “I would want administration to be involved.”
Both Powell and Rousseau said administration was not included in the resolution because it’s assumed it would be involved.
The resolution was unanimously approved, but Rousseau said there’s still room to move forward.
“We’re in the beginning stages. If we want to update (the resolution), we can and I think we should,” Rousseau said. Because of former Sen. Jackson Hite’s resignation in Dec. 2010, Sen. Emma Newman was appointed as the PRRC Senate representative, and Sen. Chris Bocchicchio was appointed as a University Senate representative.
Senators also discussed ways to allocate the over-realized fund, created when actual tuition is higher than projections, so the incidental fee has more than enough to cover committee funding.
Some senators suggested handing it out like the surplus funds. Since the special requests that come before senate often work to delay meetings, more were supportive of creating a committee to deal with the special requests that would relay their decisions onto the larger senate.
Next Week
A working group to create a proposal for dealing with over-realized funds was formed, comprising of senators Kaitlyn Lange, Blake Sedgley, James Dos Santos, Zachary Stark-MacMillan, Hinman and Powell. This working group will settle on a proposal to work out the method of dealing with the approximately $200,000 left in the fund.
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Students want a say in University restructuring discussions
Daily Emerald
January 5, 2011
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