The University of Oregon Forensics program will gain access to its promised funding of $174,606 for this year, with the funds now being housed within the Department of Student Life, allowing forensics to continue its travel planning for their season this year.
In mid-October, Mock Trial and Debate held discussions with the Associated Students of the University of Oregon and Vice President of Student Life and Provost Christopher Long.
“The teams will continue to have about $180,000 in funding through (ASUO) this year for travel and competitions,” university spokesperson Eric Howald said.
The funding is currently being housed in the Department of Student Life, and it was “decided that it would be best if they sit with those funds, because otherwise they (forensics) don’t have a budget authority to utilize that money,” ASUO President Prissila Moreno said.
The Department of Student Life will support forensics in travel planning for the remainder of the 2025-26 season.
Both Masha Mironova, president of debate, and Moreno confirmed that there are no plans for current Forensics Director Trond Jacobsen to be rehired. His role as the director of forensics ends on Dec. 3 and his instructor position at the Clark Honors College ends on Sept. 3, 2026.
Forensics members are determined to remain a department and, for now, is ruling out the option to become a student-registered organization within ASUO.
Moreno, the Department Finance Committee of ASUO and the provost will work in conjunction to find a new academic home for forensics by the end of December.
Moreno said that ASUO is aiming to make forensics as budget neutral as possible for prospective academic homes, which signifies increasing ASUO funding by $15,000 to support a travel advisor.
“It seemed like the reasoning for a lot of the academic homes saying no, at first, or being hesitant, was because it would cost money for them,” Moreno said.
Accessing forensics endowment funds might play a key role in increasing ASUO funding. All endowment funds are made out to the Department of Forensics or the director of forensics, and as a result, “UO Foundation would need to work with the donors to rework the language in the endowments,” Mironova said.
Parker Nagy, vice president of Internal Affairs for Debate adds, “We cannot ensure long-term stability of the program without institutional support from the university in the form of being a department.”
A student-run program model would not bode well with the nature of forensics travel schedule, as “they don’t always know if they’re going to make it to the next round up until two weeks before,” Moreno said.
All student-run organizations are required to complete all travel planning six to eight weeks in advance of travel.
Funding for the program would be significantly less as a student organization. “The highest I’ve seen student organizations is $40,000 to $60,000,” Moreno said.
Forensics would begin in the lowest of four tiers of student organizations and as a result, student leaders would not receive stipends for new travel and budget planning responsibilities.
“It would kind of be like starting from zero, and that’s really scary for an organization that has been around the University of Oregon. It kind of feels like the path of becoming a student organization is the beginning of the end of forensics,” according to Moreno.
