Slade Leeson
Age: 21
Major: Pre-journalism
Hometown: Portland, Oregon
Year: Junior
Emerald: Platform summary. What do you hope to accomplish?
Leeson: Well, I mean, I feel like I’ve done a lot of good work so far in the time I’ve spent on the board with regard to how we’ve rewritten reserve policies to spend money more efficiently and how we’ve allocated the fee generally. This was sort of an interesting year for us on the budget committee because of the problems we’ve had with the reserve calculations and I think we were able to come out of that with a budget that was substantially under the benchmark the Senate gave us, because they essentially gave us a 7 percent benchmark in error, that used the money that we used for growth efficiently without sort of exploiting their trust. And also we were able to, we continue to be able to, keep the EMU away from being a real commercial student union building like you see on a number of other campuses around the country.
Emerald: I guess this sort of goes into the next question, background, what qualifies you for this position? Have you been on the EMU Board before?
Leeson: My freshman year I ran for a half term at-large position and won that, and then this previous year I was appointed as ASUO programs representative, so I’m just finishing my second year on the board.
Emerald: Any other background you want to share?
Leeson: I don’t think there’s anything particularly applicable. I have done political work obviously in other places. I spent time working for the city of Portland in certain varying leadership roles, but whether that is a serious qualification is debatable.
Emerald: What kind of leadership roles?
Leeson: Well, I worked for a pool as a lifeguard and as I moved up I wound up doing more and more kind of ad hoc staff management because there were times when the higher levels of management in the city didn’t manage personnel well and it often fell to us to handle staff and things like that.
Emerald: So why do you want the job?
Leeson: I think I sort of already answered it. We have an awesome building here, one, and we’ve sort of established the terms of the budgetary process that has year-in, year-out not been a mess when other areas have been, especially this year, have been a mess. We want to continue that. I would like to stay because we developed a sense of community, because we haven’t moved in a retail kind of direction. If you look at the best locations in the building, we have the ASUO down in probably the best office, the Emerald is up in the third floor suite, the Survival Center and the Women’s Center given sort of top bill in terms of space. We have had retail in the past. It’s food service or Totally Cellular, it’s kind of been off to the side. It means we don’t make as much money. We could give the ASUO office to the Gap and you know, roll in money. We could turn a profit if we really tried to go in retail, but I don’t think that’s what students want and I think we’ve done a good job in not doing that.
Emerald: In light of the ASUO retreat in Sunriver, Ore., what is the best way to ensure proper accountability from student leaders next year?
Leeson: I think that — and I mean, I was on the retreat, so take all this as coming from someone who was on the retreat — I think that, one, you had a lot of people that were not clear on what the rules were. Like there were a lot of people that were 21 who didn’t think it was a problem at all for them to sit down and have a beer. There were also a lot of people that weren’t 21 who didn’t think it was a problem for them to sit down and have a beer. And, you know, you take from that what you will and that was addressed in a way that satisfied Chris Loschiavo and the conduct code process. As far as next year, I think already it’s been made obvious to everybody what the rules are. If there were misunderstandings before, that’s been ironed out. I think the ASUO’s done a lot of good things in terms of educating people, educating students about what happened and what went wrong.
Emerald: 30-second warning.
Leeson: If it was given me to run next year, for some reason, I would just say, “Look, you guys all know what the rules are and if you choose to not follow them, we’re just going to leave you to the mercy of the conduct code, and that’ll be that.” And that’s how it should be.
Emerald: How feasible is the EMU Master Plan? How would you facilitate it?
Leeson: Well, I mean, it’s perfectly feasible. The architects designed it, we, the board obviously likes the plan. It’s a matter of fundraising. We have, not myself, but other people from the board, talking to people that are involved in Frohnmayer’s capital campaign. I mean, I guess I would say it’s very feasible pending fundraising.