Oregon Daily Emerald: Could you tell me your name, what year you are in school, and what your major is?
Khalsa: I’m Guru Simrat K. Khalsa and I’m a freshman. I’m 22, though, because I took a couple years traveling, I’m coming in now and I’m looking to get a double major in international studies and journalism with a minor in business.
Emerald: Are you involved in any activities or student groups on campus?
Khalsa: No, I’m not, I’d really like to get involved, and be able to participate and help the student body or the school in any way possible, and I thought that this would be a good way to do that.
Emerald: If you are elected to student senate, how will you figure out how to spend the senate surplus?
Khalsa: Like the extra money that they have? Well, that really depends. I’m going for the EMU Board, and they deal with allocating office space, but also giving money to different groups and programs and events and shows that come on. Maybe organizing like a really fun event, I’m just talking about in my category, because that’s what we deal with. Or maybe putting more money into an event that people really like, or doing something like that.
Emerald: If elected, how will you interact with student groups?
Khalsa: Very well. What do you mean, how will I interact? Like what kind of things will I do? Talk to them and make sure that their needs are being fulfilled. Make sure that they’re happy. Basically, I just want to make sure that everyone is getting what they want. And I’m trying to figure out what people want and trying to see how we can manage to get that done. Pretty simple.
Emerald: How would you figure out what people want?
Khalsa: Well, by asking them. I guess I would set up meetings with all the different groups and talk to them, see what’s working for them, what isn’t, ask them, get direct feedback from them. Maybe one or two different people in the group, first talk to the main person, then also get feedback from other people.
Emerald: What are the most important issues facing the students you’d represent?
Khalsa: The student groups? It’s probably money. I think money is one of the biggest issues for everybody — getting funding for their different programs. Within the EMU, it might be getting the space, that they can get the time and space, or the office space, they might want a better office, or maybe it be getting more money for their event or their group.
Emerald: What is the most important thing you should know in order to deal with the budget process?
Khalsa: Well, the most important thing you should know is what kind of things, like looking from the past, what kind of things it’s really benefited, like what kind of things it’s been good to spend money on in the past, what kind of things hasn’t really, what hasn’t been good. It’s good to know about all the different groups and really make sure you divide things up fairly, like depending on how big one group is or how small another group is. It’s important to have a future plan, but I think it’s a lot important to see what’s happened in the past and then get in the information what’s going to be happening now. How you’ve allocated money before and talk to the people that you’re allocating money to now, assessing their needs and assessing the situation. Figuring out things like that.
Emerald: What two ways can the senate call a special meeting?
Khalsa: I don’t know. Like, is there two special ways that they call special meetings? I’m not sure.
Emerald: Yeah, it’s in the student senate rulebook. Have you looked at the rulebook?
Khalsa: No.
Emerald: What’s the most important part of section five of the student senate rules and why?
Khalsa: I don’t know what section five is of the student rules because I haven’t looked at the rulebook.
Emerald: It’s the senators’ duties.
Khalsa: I would think that the most important part of the senators’ duties is to fulfill their job honestly and to fulfill the students’ needs to the best of their abilities because I think that’s what the senate is there for to help the students. From what information they can, they can get from everybody to make the best decisions, make the most honest decisions, not just based on who you know in what group, but just really assess the material and be able to allocate the money in that sense.
Guru Simrat Khalsa’s Interview
Daily Emerald
April 2, 2003
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