This week, the Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group is working to obtain ASUO funding in two separate ways: obtaining signatures to demonstrate student support for a ballot measure and attending the OSPIRG finance committee hearing on Wednesday.
Some students are opposed, however, to the way OSPIRG has sought out signatures.
As of Friday afternoon, OSPIRG had collected more than 3,000 signatures for a petition that would put the same ballot measure in the 2011 ASUO elections it had in last year’s election. A “yes” majority would make “a non-binding statement that the ASUO should fund OSPIRG at a level that allows OSPIRG to hire professional staff to advocate on behalf of students.”
University junior Janessa Nelson attended the Mills International Center for its weekly Coffee Hour cultural event on Friday afternoon. Nelson said this week the theme was Chinese International Hour, so many of the students in attendance were Chinese exchange students.
This week, however, Nelson said they also had a visit from some OSPIRG members.
“Overall on campus we have been hounded by OSPIRG a little bit this past week. The constant berating as we’re walking to class, which is understandable, they’re trying to pass a measure … annoying, but within their realm,” Nelson said.
“However, when they entered the international center, they were going around with their forms, having some of the people who were there signing the forms. They succeeded in getting about five people to sign their forms, before our good friend Bolo, who is the ISA director, we went and pointed it out to her, and she went and politely asked them all to leave.”
Nelson was upset by members of OSPIRG coming into the event.
“It was not an event that was targeted for them to come and politically try and push their agenda on to people. It was a social event, meant to be talking, learning about international culture,” Nelson said. “I don’t think they were fully telling the students what they were, who they were, what it was for … they speak English, but maybe not the best English, and to have them sort of be pushed into signing something, they weren’t really spending a lot of time with them.”
University sophomore Daniel Hartley was also there for the event. He said there were around 50 to 60 students of various cultures attending and American students there to interact with them.
“There were like three of them (OSPIRG petitioners), and they kind of spread out across the room, and they were all signing; it just seemed really rude to me. We’re there to have coffee and have fun with each other,” Hartley said. “And it also just seemed weird, because over half of these people are not citizens of the United States … I know half of them didn’t understand what they were doing.”
University freshman Christian Erichsen now occupies the new freshman ASUO Senate seat and recently started doing work with OSPIRG. He works specifically with the “Hunger and Homelessness” campaign and this week worked on getting signatures for the ballot petition.
“They were looking for volunteers,” Erichsen said, adding that, “I’ve been looking for ways to get more involved on campus.”
Erichsen wasn’t a student when OSPIRG was last defunded by the ASUO, but he said he’s been doing research and is in favor of their mission.
“As it benefits students that have lives that extend beyond life at the University, it’s a good use of student fees, as long as OSPIRG remains under student control,” Erichsen said.
According to the Green Tape Notebook, which is the ASUO rule book, placing a measure on the ballot for a referendum requires signatures from five percent of the student population or about 1,200 students.
Either way, a ballot measure vote cannot determine the size or direction of the incidental fee. Actual decisions about OSPIRG’s funding for the 2011-12 academic year will happen at its Feb. 2 hearing with the Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee and at the March 2 Senate meeting, where the full Senate will vote on the ACFC’s recommendations.
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