For the past month, ASUO President Nilda Brooklyn and Vice President Joy Nair have posted a sign counting down the days left until they leave office.
The white butcher paper countdown is the biggest sign on the bulletin board behind their desks in the ASUO office, dwarfing small fliers for University events and student government programs.
After three years working for different ASUO positions, Brooklyn, a junior, said she won’t be going near the office anytime soon.
“I am done after spending the last three years there,” she said.
Today, Brooklyn and Nair will hand over the executive office and all of its responsibilities to newly elected ASUO President Rachel Pilliod and Vice President Ben Buzbee.
As Brooklyn and Nair leave office, they said they did not accomplish as many of their goals as they hoped, and left some partially completed. Despite successfully reducing the energy fee during the year, they fell short of their promise to eliminate the fee completely. Originally, the fee was $30 fall term, and was reduced to $20 for winter term, then to $15 spring term. The reduction in the fee was the result of student efforts, lower natural gas bills and higher enrollment, and the women said they hope that effort continues.
“We hope the fee will be eliminated next year,” Nair said.
Brooklyn added that she is still proud that the executive established five new ASUO positions for energy conservation, paid for by the Provost’s office.
Nair, a junior, said she plans to work on diversity issues next year with the Office of Student Life. Nair also hopes to earn the position of the Diversity Affairs Coordinator for Enrollment Services.
“I have built relationships with the people most directly involved with diversity issues on campus and that will be a foundation to work from next year,” she said.
She and Brooklyn built that foundation during their term, in part by advocating for more representative multicultural requirements, although they said they did not accomplish as much as they had hoped.
Brooklyn said they lobbied administrators and looked into how other universities implemented their multicultural requirements. This spring, the Faculty Advisory Council agreed to officially explore revising the multicultural requirement, but they hoped to do more than just “start a conversation.”
“We simply wanted a review process for the multicultural requirements,” Brooklyn said. “The requirements are 10 years old, and a lot has changed in education.”
Brooklyn said classes that fulfill the multicultural requirement often fall outside of what many perceive as multicultural, and only certain departments offer these courses.
One of Brooklyn and Nair’s campaign goals was to improve ASUO “outreach.”
ASUO Student Senator Peter Watts said he thinks the two did a good job of getting to know members from all the student groups.
“I thought they made all the student unions feel comfortable coming into the ASUO office and expressing their concerns,” he said. But Brooklyn and Nair said it took the whole year to figure out how to reach the rest of the student body. Nair said her appearance in the Panhellenic and Interfraternity Council’s The Smoker boxing event was a good example.
“I think what we ASUO nerds think is good outreach doesn’t interest the majority of students,” she said. “But, I think we did get recognized for our campus voter registration efforts and the energy campaign.”
Brooklyn said if she could change one thing about her term in office, she would have tried
to engage more people in the ASUO Executive.
Brooklyn said she is proud of how the executive handled the revision of the ASUO Clark Document to meet national laws.
Brooklyn and Nair worked with the administration on rewriting the Clark Document to prohibit student groups from being financed by student incidental fees via ballot measure.
“I think it was the best solution for the time crunch,” Brooklyn said. “I believe that the process we created is a good one, and the outcome can be changed as students and administration work together.”
Nair and Brooklyn said they had hoped to do more for making higher education more accessible to low-income students.
However, Brooklyn said she thinks they worked hard on lobbying during special sessions in Salem for the Oregon Opportunity Grant, a grant for low-income students, which was successfully
secured at its current base rate.
As Pilliod and Buzbee enter office, Brooklyn said she hopes they will be able to accomplish many of their campaign goals.
“During our term in office, the Clark Document, special session and the energy fee were issues we had not expected and they took time away from many of our previous campaign goals,” Brooklyn said.