For the Associated Students of the University of Oregon, our student government, the summer proved a rocky transition to the 2005-06 administration.
As noted by Emerald news reporter Nicholas Wilbur (ODE Aug. 11, “Student ‘sits in’ for ASUO summer Senator”), one ASUO senator, Spencer Crum, was not only missing from a Senate Summer Committee meeting in August, he was signed into the meeting by an old roommate.
Crum might find it amusing that he told his ex-roommate to “be Spencer Crum”; the rest of us paying incidental fees are hardly laughing. Crum later said that he was expecting the Senate Summer Committee to be more “flexible,” and might not have assumed his current position had he known the duties that it entailed.
University students tend to have a general reputation for avoiding serious responsibility, and it is disappointing to see members of our student government fulfilling such a negative stereotype.
The Crum/roommate identity switch was not the only situation of lagging attendance that plagued the ASUO this summer. One senator, Sara Hamilton of the EMU Board Finance, crafted an e-mail to her fellow senators regarding the problem of continual absences meetings (ODE July 9, “ASUO committee neglects duties”). When less than two-thirds of the committee is in attendance, meetings must be postponed.
Hamilton wrote that “coherent organization” was lacking among the Summer Committee Senators, to which Committee Chairman Reinier Heyden replied that they were doing their best and hadn’t considered the fact that Senators might be out of town during the summer.
Senators were missing from meetings without giving notice to anyone. Obviously, someone is not doing their best, be it in terms of prompt responses or simply taking the time to communicate.
If ASUO senators cannot even understand and relate with each other, how can they expect to respond to 20,000 students?
Further troubling is the fact that multiple senators this summer violated Green Tape Notebook rules by failing to hold office hours or missing more than one-third of senate meetings.
The Summer Senate is given $5,000 to distribute. When elected officials don’t do their work in a mature and devoted manner, it’s basically like giving the middle finger to the entire student body.
In response to the various issues plaguing the Senate Committee this summer, ASUO President Adam Walsh has been ambiguous on possible ramifications in the upcoming year. Walsh isn’t sure what, if any, action will be taken against senators who violated their job duties this summer.
Students are exhausted of hearing about ASUO officials not taking their jobs seriously (think: last year’s ASUO retreat to Sunriver, saturated in arrogance and marijuana), and the Emerald is exhausted from reporting on it. In the following year, the entirety of the ASUO needs to take heed: We, the students of the University, cared enough to elect you. Show the University that you care enough to represent us and spend our money wisely.

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