Jared Axelrod
Age: 18
Major: Political Science
Hometown: Bellevue, Washington
Year: Freshman
Emerald: If you could sum up your position, or platform, in a sentence, what would it be?
Axelrod: I want to work for the students. I want to be able to take the idea back from this position that we’ve been put in, that the PFC’s been put in, as being a body that doesn’t do much and is wrong in what they do. I want to use the help of the committee and the ASUO as well as the students to be able to come to an agreement and to have a better year than we did this year.
Emerald: And what qualifies you for this position?
Axelrod: Well, I’ve had a lot of past experiences. I was an intern in the ASUO on the legislative team for fall and winter terms and I’m doing it again for spring term. So I’ve gotten a lot of experience in the office and the workings of the ASUO and how student government works and you know how the budget process is and the different people who work in the office. And then I also, I applied and became the PFC at-large seat and sat on the Programs Finance Committee for little over a month since the process was almost completed. I also have that, I have experience from doing both those.
Emerald: Why do you want the job?
Axelrod: I think it’s important. Obviously, as everyone knows, there’s been a big controversy with how student money is spent and by sitting on the committee it’s really opened my eyes to the problems that are kind of going on and the problems that we had this year. So I kind of want to be able to address those problems and fix them. I mean I sat on the committee so I know exactly what worked and what didn’t work, and so I feel that by being elected for next year I feel that I could bring some new ideas and hopefully fix the problems that we had this year.
Emerald: In light of the ASUO retreat to Sunriver what do you think is the best way to ensure proper accountability from student leaders next year?
Axelrod: I think maybe … proper accountability. Student leaders take on the position of basically acting as, you know, the representative in government for the student body. Being a representative of the student body obviously has the connotation of, you know, the students pick you to represent them and to voice the students’ opinions in different places, such as in the school, on the state level, on the city level, on the federal level and so definitely there needs to be some, there definitely needs to be accountability. As to how that can be done I’m not quite sure. I don’t know all the facts about the Sunriver retreat, what exactly went on, I’ve only found out from what I’ve read in the Emerald, but I guess just student leaders just need to know that they’re in a leadership position, all their actions are being watched by the 20,000 plus students and so they just need to take on that leadership position head on and be able to deal with all of the things that go along with it.
Emerald: And in light of the actions with the Oregon Commentator this year what aspects of a student group would you take into consideration when considering the approval of a mission and goals statement?
Axelrod: Well, with the Commentator, it came down to being a question of free speech and what that exactly meant on the University level. I was actually just reading the Commentator now and what they had wrote and, I mean when it comes to printed documents, I mean, it kind of is an all-or-nothing thing. You either let all publications go with what they want to say or you let none and there shouldn’t be anything between, you know, whose job is to say what can and can’t be printed. It certainly isn’t the students’ position to say what could be put in and what couldn’t. You kind of just have to take a step back and see what you’re actually doing and see what the effects will actually have.