The ASUO president and vice president are high-profile positions on the University of Oregon campus, and together they must lead an organization that represents all students. Next year, the leadership may face the fallout of increasing tuition and decreasing financial aid. Today, the Emerald presents the final two candidates.
Pierre Spence and Jack Mantel are focusing their campaign on making campus safer for students, while Jarrett White and Greg McNeill plan to institute a student’s bill of rights and make student groups more accountable.
Pierre Spence, a sophomore political science major, is running for president with Jack Mantel, a sophomore journalism major. Spence is not involved with any groups on campus but participates on the spring
intramural ultimate team. Mantel is also not involved with any groups on campus, but said he also plans on joining the ultimate team.
Q: What are your campus
initiatives?
Spence: I have a lot of friends who work with SafeRide and DDS and stuff, and one idea that they had, which I liked, was maybe increasing the lighting around campus, trying to make it more secure. Another idea was trying to get more security guards, but I don’t know if that would be a good idea.
Q: How will you interact with the community?
Mantel: I like community service. You can always — I think the best way to attract people to know who you are is to try to help them out. And so if you make efforts to help people out like — I don’t really know how, just going out and cleaning up streets or something — but if you’re helping somebody out, people notice, and (when) you are noticeable, people think you’re a nice guy or whatever, and then you become more approachable that way, too.
Q: How would you make the ASUO relevant to students?
Spence: Maybe like advertising more when we’re having meetings that they can attend, putting up posters saying, ‘Hey, there’s a senate meeting going on.’ Just trying to increase awareness in general; hopefully, somebody will be interested in it.
Mantel: I think the concerns are already relevant, it’s just people don’t know about them. Obviously everything that ASUO does affects the students, so it’s just getting the students to know what it’s all about. I mean, that’s why the ASUO is here, is for the students.
Jarrett White, a junior business major, is running for president with Greg McNeill, a junior political science major. White is the chairman of the College Republicans, although White said his leadership in the College Republicans will not affect his ASUO campaign. McNeill, who ran for the Oregon House of Representatives in the 2002 election, is a member of Delta Upsilon.
Q: So what are your campus
initiatives?
White: We have two things that we’re mainly running on. One is ASUO accountability with regards to the incidental fee, and making campus groups and incidental fee-funded groups accountable with their money, especially OSPIRG. That is one of our big campaigns, making OSPIRG be accountable to the students, which we feel they’re not by taking money off of campus and just wasting our money, we believe. And we also want to bring to the administration a ‘Students Bill of Rights’ to give students. (It) gives the students specific rights in the classroom and at the University.
Q: How will you interact with the community?
White: We’ll be open for discussion with people around the community (and) students if they want to give us ideas and concerns that they have. I think Greg and I will really do our best to have an open ear to all student concerns, whatever they may be because I understand how they feel. I’ve been a student for three years now, and I’ve felt just manhandled pretty much by the ASUO. But we’ll really work on having an open ear and listening to students and people around the campus on their ideas.
Q: How would you make the ASUO relevant to students?
White: I think the number one thing that we can do is help students try and save money and not let the incidental fee just skyrocket, as we had the special referendum this year. I’ll tell you one thing that has made me the most upset about this current administration, is they just let that referendum just slide through. We’re not going to let that happen to students.

• 
  Spence/Mantel Interview
• 
  White/McNeill Interview
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