Oregon Daily Emerald: Could you, just to start off, spell your name for the record?
Harding: Jesse Harding.
Emerald: What year and major are you?
Harding: I am going to be a senior majoring in journalism and international studies.
Emerald: What are you going to do after college?
Harding: I actually want to be a foreign correspondent some day.
Emerald: Where are you from?
Harding: I am from Portland, actually Lake Oswego. I graduated from Lakeridge in 1999.
Emerald: Why are you running for the ASUO Student Senate?
Harding: It’s just kind of a logical step for me. I’ve been involved in ASUO all this year and I’ve been involved with different things around campus and different leadership positions ever since I’ve been here. I actually ran as a freshman and got destroyed. And I’ve been around, I go to a lot of the sporting events and what not, but also because I am friends with a lot of senators — I actually have had a chance to talk with them about some of the issues that the ADFC goes through, and because I’m familiar with the fee process and because I’m familiar with the rules of senate and basically the system itself, I feel really comfortable jumping into a position there. I know that — I believe there is only one person of the three actual senators that is returning next year. And I think even the appointed person from ASUO isn’t returning either, so I was hoping kind of — even though I don’t have direct experience there — to help maybe give a little more continuity than would be there because I know for a lot of people that run, they are usually freshmen or sophomores or whatever and they are looking to get involved, but they don’t actually have the experience and they aren’t very familiar with the whole process.
Emerald: What involvement did you have with the ASUO this year?
Harding: Right now I am the Community Outreach coordinator.
Emerald: What other clubs, groups or activities are you involved in on-campus or in the community?
Harding: I’m a member of Pi Kappa Alpha, I was the president last year and rush chair right now. When I was a freshman, I was president of the Residence Hall Association. And, that’s pretty much it. Sorry, I’m also co-chair of the Student Conduct Code committee.
Emerald: How are you going to make time for senate obligations if you are elected with your other time commitments and with school?
Harding: Actually, next year I will probably have a lot more time than I did this year. M y whole career has been basically balancing leadership positions and school. Usually, I’ve done the job of putting those positions first, maybe even when I shouldn’t. So, that’s not really my worry. I’m more worried about my grades than I’m worried about actually being able to do the position.
Emerald: How will you figure out how to spend the surplus that the senate disperses each year?
Harding: Well, it’s a process. We go off of benchmarks from last year and see what was spent, and just basically see what the at-cost prices (are) like for seating and what not and for different things that ADFC pays for. A lot of it is going off past precedent, looking at little things like inflation, looking at other little things like has the incidental fee been increased, and to my knowledge it hasn’t been. So, just basically just going off those same numbers. I think there was like — I know there was an increase from last year to this year and I don’t know, I want to say it was like 20 percent — I thought it was something large, but I might be mistaken — just to help offset costs for Autzen seating and because of some of the discrepancies they’ve had with Mac Court seating, too.
Emerald: How will you interact with student groups on campus?
Harding: Basically, you know there are some more obvious groups that are connected to the ADFC, like i.e. the Pit Crew, but there are also a lot of other groups that work with sporting events whether it is to fundraise, to clean up afterwards, basically you know. ADFC’s job is to represent student views on ticket pricing and other functions involved with sports and the UO, so basically we would just be doing a polling and a sampling, going out on our own, not just myself but the other ADFC senators, and just finding out ‘OK, this group is interested in working with us to get something more for themselves.’ One group that likes to use facilities and what not that maybe isn’t actually officially through ADFC is Club Sports, so you know maybe working with the EMU board and them to cooperate. There is a lot of room for things. It’s not traditionally as much of a go-out-and-find-other-student-groups sort of position, as much as say being on ASUO Exec would be.
Emerald: What are the most important issues facing the students that you will be representing if you are elected?
Harding: Do you mean specific issues as a senator or specific issues relating to the athletic finance committee?
Emerald: It’s kind of a general question so I would ask in the context of the athletic senator, in the contest of a senator on the ASUO student senate and as a student leader.
Harding: Well one issue that students always seem concerned about is the availability of tickets and the distribution of tickets, how smoothly that process goes. You know, other students selling tickets is always an issue. So from the Athletic Department Finance Committee standpoint, that’s what I would say are the big, core issues. And obviously there is a big demand for tickets because we are so good at a lot of sports but also just from a general senate standpoint, especially right now, with the budget cuts in the state and everything else, students are going crazy about their tuition and even though the senate doesn’t actually go up to the senate in Salem and advocate for tuition decreases and increases and that stuff, there’s a lot that the board can do, whether it be through resolution or whether it be just from getting involved and getting other students involved to make sure that we don’t have further increases. We can write to Provost Moseley, there’s a lot of stuff like that.
Emerald: OK, What is the most important (thing) you should know in order to deal with the budget process?
Harding: I would say you need to know how the fee is allocated, you need to know the process itself, you need to know basically not only where the money is going but why it is going there, why is it appropriate and realizing basically I guess that the incidental fee is everybody’s’ money, and it’s not just some board’s money to do whatever they want with. Whenever you spend any incidental fee money, you are spending money that is everybody’s money and it better be going to a service that could benefit all students and make the experience here better for them.
Emerald: What topics is the senate allowed to pass resolutions about?
Harding: The senate can technically pass a resolution on just about anything, from my understanding. Now, in terms of what that resolution does or what it actually states can be a different thing because the senate is supposed to be non-partisan. So, you can’t take direct stances on political issues. The senate can’t pass a thing that says that — part of the debate actually, this even goes back to the university assembly, can you pass a resolution that says ‘we are against war,’ is that partisan or nonpartisan? Or can you pass one that says ‘we are against this war?’ So that’s why I say you can pass it on just about anything because you can always come up with some sort of wording that is not partisan, but it really is and it really isn’t, so basically anything that’s nonpartisan that’s a belief — I don’t’ want to say a belief, but just like a position that, for example, we could pass a resolution that is against tuition hikes. That makes sense because that’s something that directly affects students. That’s something that we could advocate on students for at a different level and it’s not necessarily a partisan issue.
Em
erald: What is the most important part of section 5 of the student senate rules and why?
Harding: You’re talking about the duties? Just like the overall and the constitution?
Emerald: Uh huh.
Harding: Okay, I was just reading through it actually. Obviously, just the fact that we have to submit our own budget is the biggest thing. That we have — I mean the appointment stuff is not something we have to worry about too much, as long as we have quorum, which is three of the five, then we are fine. Basically that we have our budget in there and that if it is vetoed by the president that we have five days to get a new one in there and get it approved through the senate. So, to me, the whole point of being one of the finance senators is all about the money, all about the budget, all about how you allocate not just even ADFC money, but also what I think it’s like 8.3 million dollars in incidental fee money…how you do that also.
Emerald: Is there anything that you’d like to add?
Harding: No, I can’t really think of anything right now. I know that if you have any questions for me or whatever, you can feel free to call me. I know how this goes.