Newly elected Associated Students of the University of Oregon President, Mariam Hassan, prioritized topics including representing cultures and creating a student-led festival during her election campaign with Kikachi Akpakwu under the OurUO slate. The current ASUO president, Chloé Webster, prioritizes topics such as improving partnerships between ASUO and student organizations during her tenure.
In interviews with the Daily Emerald, several student organizations, multicultural groups and UO students discuss their hopes for ASUO and areas of improvement it needs.
UO Black Male Alliance
For UO Black Male Alliance President Desi Acuay, he hopes that Hassan and Akpakwu can live up to the topics they prioritized while running.
“I hope they’ll make the right decisions and when they get into office. They still keep some of the things they promise in their focus, [and] as long as they kind of keep their agenda in line with that, then I think they’ll do fine,” Acuay said.
Acuay also said that he hopes that Hassan can bring a “fresh new vision of eyes” to ASUO.
He also said an increase in support for budgeting is important for him.
“Us cultural groups that kind of [been] screw[ed] over [by] the budgets and all these little nooks and crannies that people keep on promising year after year to make POC easier.”
Acuay emphasized the importance of stipends for multicultural groups, especially for BMA, considering the lack of pension in the ‘23-’24 academic year.
“As an interest group, we have [an] interest in getting money. It sounds bad, but I mean, if you put in the work, you get paid, and I feel like that’s the whole part of stipends,” Acuay said.
BMA had received a stipend of $5400 in the ‘22-’23 academic year, however, Acuay said that BMA dropped their stipend budget from last year to receive a larger program expenses budget this year.
Additionally, Acuay wants to see an increase in acknowledgment of the BMA club at ASUO events.
“I feel like we often get looked over, and we’re looked at when diversity needs it,” Acuay said.
UO Muxeres
UO Muxeres Finance Director Mayra Marin has hopes that the newly elected student government body, led by OurUO leaders Hassan and Akpakwu, will benefit student organizations and the greater student body.
“I feel like the one who caught my attention and I thought would benefit my org and in general [the] student body was the OurUO campaign,” Marin said. “The first thing that I noticed was the vast multicultural message in their team compared to others.”
Marin also said that she hopes that in the following year, ASUO will make more supportive financial decisions for student organizations.
“I feel like as the finance director, I just in general want more financial help: them providing us more resources of what to do with our money, how to spend it efficiently [and] the processes of everything,” Marin said.
According to Marin, UO Muxeres won’t have a budget increase next year because its ‘22-’23 expenditures did not meet the requirement for a raise.
“A frustration we had was that the money we requested for our budget was a lot compared to last year’s budget,” she said.
UO Muxeres currently receives a stipend total of $5,400 and its current annual budget lands at $6,000. The previous year, UO Muxeres received an annual budget of $7,640.
Marin also said that ASUO events are not “catered” to the multicultural community at UO.
“I feel like with the ASUO events, they’re not necessarily catered to us,” Marin said. “I feel like right now, if you were to go up to a student and ask them, ‘Oh, do you think ASUO has been throwing events that represent you or your ideals?’ They wouldn’t say yes.”
Marin said more representation from ASUO to the student body and multicultural groups would help students feel better represented by their student government.
UO Student Workers
UO Student Workers does not receive funding from ASUO. Nonetheless, UOSW
co-lead organizer Carolyn Roderique said they hope that ASUO can bring awareness to the independent union in the coming academic year.
“I think just organizing, raising awareness of the student body towards solidarity with the union, so having people show up if we have any big rallies or actions, and having people come to bargaining sessions,” Roderique said. “It is helpful to have their support.”
Currently, UOSW is in the process of organizing demands to bargain with the university, to which Roderique said that ASUO can support by supporting UOSW in its bargaining efforts.
“I think taking strong positions, telling the university to do the right thing. Having positioning themselves on the sides of student workers are all things that are helpful,” Roderique said.
UOSW endorsed ASUO running slate UO Student Power because both aligned on the cause of supporting student organizers.
“The people who are organizing, the people who are building worker power, I think are the people to best support the students, and that sort of is what went into our executive committee’s endorsement of [UO] Student Power,” Roderique said.
Nonetheless, Roderique said that UOSW is more focused on the bargaining contact than a student body election.
“I’m sure Mariam and Kiki are fantastic candidates, they won for a reason,” Roderique said. “We have to trust democratic mandate. We have to trust what students want, so we’re not going to be upset about the election. I think it’s just our number one focus is our contract and it hasn’t been student government elections.”
UO Native American Student Union
In a statement to the Daily Emerald, NASU co-director Tiera Garrety highlights the lack of representation deriving from ASUO.
“Ultimately, at its core, ASUO is not an organization that is built to support students of marginalized communities. As an organization, ASUO seeks to create extractive relationships with our communities that do not honor our traditions nor values.”
Garrety also said that NASU is “hopeful” for the incoming ASUO administration.
“We are hopeful that with the newly elected administration, conversations around creating a more holistic environment within student government for cultural organization will continue.”
UO Students
UO student Kiara Gardley highlighted how ASUO lacks representation for the student body since UO is a “predominantly white university.”
Gardley cited a lack of funding to smaller student organizations as the reason why ASUO lacks representation amongst the student body.
“I definitely think that funding definitely gets the word out about these smaller organizations,” Gardley said. “Although there’s a lot of different groups here, there’s a lack of representation because people just aren’t aware that these really exist.”
UO student Kena Campbell said that the current ASUO is doing a “very good job” at “exploiting the problems” between the multicultural groups.
“[I] think that they do a very good job at exploiting the problems that there are and [the] discrepancies between multicultural groups,” Campbell said. “I would say that they do a very good job of representing those areas and where it can be better… which isn’t good.”
Regardless, Campbell said that Webster is doing a “good job” at providing opportunities for students to interact with each other.
“I think person-to-person activities and being able to interact with people who either look like you or places where you are… is definitely the highlight of something that Chloé is bringing to students here [UO].”
Campbell hopes that Hassan can “show up for everybody” as the next ASUO president.
“I think that being able to show up for us, for everybody, if you’re interested you don’t necessarily have to look like the person right next to you to want to learn about them or feel invited into that group, so I hope that diversity and inclusion is what’s excelled in her [Hassan] presidency,” Campbell said.
On Oct. 20, Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation and University of Oregon Student Workers gathered in front of Johnson Hall to protest a better work environment. On Oct. 25, UOSW received enough votes to be a certified union, enabling the ability to move forward with the bargaining process with UO. (Coda/Emerald)
