Interview with Jacob Daniels and Amy DuFour, candidates for ASUO president and vice president. (full transcript)
 
Jacob Daniels
President
Age: 20
Major: Political science
Hometown: Creswell
Year: Senior
 
Amy DuFour
Vice President
Age: 21
Major: Public relations
Hometown: Long Beach, Calif.
Year: Junior
 
Emerald: First question: Briefly summarize your platform.
Daniels: First and foremost, we want to revitalize the EMU. We’re going to work with the Student Building Fee Allocation Committee, the EMU Board of Directors and (EMU Director) Dusty Miller to bring in more vendors, possibly a Duck shop. We’ll work with the Cultural Forum to get a speaker series, maybe more concerts at the EMU and we’re going to refocus attention toward the long-term $50-million revitalization. We understand that we can’t, you know, have that happen during our time in office, but we want to focus attention toward repairing and remodeling this building. It’s important to have a lively student union, like other universities.
DuFour: Our second platform issue is student advocacy. In 2004, I ran the largest voter registration drive in our University’s history. So we are looking to do that again, as well as lobby in Salem. But we’re also really concerned with issues, advocating for issues here on campus, such as Westmoreland.
Daniels: Those have to be reformed. A few issues, things like the rec center, Career Center, areas like that, that … all University of Oregon students and the University as a whole can benefit from. We want to work with the UO administration to encourage a reinvestment in those programs, so student incidental fees don’t have to bear such a burden of funding those programs that the University of Oregon benefits from. The law school has been asking for some time to have a separate law school ability to allocate money to law school programs, so we want to allocate a certain amount of money to the Student Bar Association, who will then be able to allocate the money, according to their set model, to programs within the law school. I’ve spoken with Ed Wilson, the president of the Student Bar Association, and he seemed excited about the idea. Also, the University of Oregon – there’s a catering stronghold. Student programs that want to buy food on campus, they have to go through (University Catering and Conferences). There’s inflated prices, the students end up bearing the burden of paying those higher prices for student incidental fees. What we want to do is open up the franchise, a free-market approach where student programs can go to Costco, Albertsons, catering, any licensed kitchen to buy food. Hopefully that free-market approach will lead to lower prices, which will lead to a slower growth of the student incidental fee.
DuFour: And our final platform issue is recalculating financial aid. The University hasn’t recalculated financial aid in a few years, which - and the current numbers don’t include inflation over the past two years, and so a law professor has conducted research that shows that students that receive this financial aid aren’t even receiving enough money to cover health care costs or food. And so we’d like to work with Elizabeth Bickford, the director of (Student Financial Aid), to not only recalculate the numbers, but to see what we can do for students in terms of financial aid.
Emerald: Great. What qualifies you guys for this position, for president and vice president?
Daniels: Well, I ran for Exec last year. I have a pretty good understanding – a good understanding of the ASUO Executive. Currently, I’m serving as the (Interfraternity Council) president. Previously, I’ve served as vice president of social issues and leadership development. I’m on a ton of greek committees. I’m very active in my fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon. I’m active in the Associated Students of the University of Oregon. I served this year on the Programs Finance Committee, the Student Building Fee Allocation Committee, Associated Students Presidential Advisory Council. I’m a peer advisor. I was the coordinator for the last three terms, a member of Pi Sigma Alpha, a charter member, vice president currently, previously the secretary. I’m involved in a lot of honor societies, such as Order of Omega, National Society of Collegiate Scholars, Freemasons. I’m very involved with (The) Oregon Advocate, communications editor, a broad array of different student programs, so I think I represent – I understand the interest of an ASUO Executive, student programs and the students, and we can bring those together and represent everybody adequately.
DuFour: And I’ve worked for the Executive for two years, as an intern, as the co-legislative associate and as the state affairs coordinator. The past two terms I was an academic senator, as well as the academic chair. And so I have a lot of experience with the ASUO Executive, and I know the inner workings and am able to understand the programs and understand the inner workings, and I’m also the vice president of chapter relations and standards for my sorority.
Emerald: Why do you want to do this job?
Daniels: Why?
Emerald: Yeah.
Daniels: The ASUO Executive is an amazing mechanism by which to enact change, not just for students but for the greater University community, the community of Eugene. Things like the ever-growing incidental fee. We want to promote program growth and development, but we also want to protect the pocketbooks of everyday students. There’s so many legislative issues that need to be tackled.
DuFour: I love advocating for students, and so I’ve been doing it for the past three years, and would love the opportunity to do it again. We both have a lot of experience working within the ASUO, but especially working outside of the ASUO, and so we look forward to advocating on behalf of students, and just being able to create change on campus and have an impact in students’ lives.
Emerald: What should be the role of student government in city, state, federal and international levels of politics?
DuFour: It’s really important to us. This year is a legislative year, and so we look forward to lobbying on behalf of students, not only here in the state of Oregon, but also federally. And so one issue that’s really important to us, obviously, is funding, financial aid and state funding, and so we look forward to lobbying in Salem. It’s important that our voices are heard because there are a lot of issues that affect us as students. And generally students our age -people our age aren’t likely to vote, just the demographic, and so we want to turn people out to vote, and we want our voices to be heard because there are a ton of issues, not just related to financial aid, but also childcare, (Family Planning Expansion Project), lots of issues that we look forward to lobbying on behalf of.
Emerald: We still have time for a follow-up. What do you think of international levels of politics? For example, what (Student Senate Ombudsman) Jared Axelrod tried to do with the Iran resolution. Do you think that’s appropriate for student government?
Daniels: I don’t think it’s appropriate for student government, just because it’s an issue which can offend certain constituents. There’s a lot of ideas regarding what’s going on in the Middle East right now. That’s the job of the United States Senate, not the ASUO Senate. I think the idea had merit. And I think the people who are supporting the idea are very passionate and have a great idea, but it just isn’t something that the student incidental fee should be working toward.
DuFour: We’re looking forward to bringing visible benefits for students on campus, and we really want to feel -we really want to work on issues that we can bring back to campus and that everyone can be a part of.
Emerald: We’re doing good on time, so maybe I’ll ask another follow-up. So then basically, you think that the student incidental fee shouldn’t be i
nvolved with that issue specifically or with issues that are of that level of politics?
Daniel: That level of politics. That’s something, you know, things dealing with weapons and international terrorism, things like that shouldn’t be the duty of a Student Senate. The Student Senate should be focused more on representing their constituents. The constituents pay the student incidental fee.
Emerald: Now, a little bit more specific question. This is for Executive candidates only: Critique student government’s handling of the Westmoreland issue. What would you do in this position? Basically, what would you do differently or the same if you were in the Executive position and faced with the Westmoreland issue?
Daniels: Well, they’ve done a good job. (ASUO President) Adam Walsh and (Vice President) Kyla (Coy) have done a very good job. I’m proud of the effort they’ve put toward the entire issue. I would try to work more with the University of Oregon central administration. I would try to schedule weekly meetings with (University President) Dave Frohnmayer instead of waiting for ASPAC or every other month. I think it’s very important to have very close contact with the administration, have a friendly relationship, but if disagreements can’t be resolved in this close relationship, then I believe that it’s the duty of the ASUO Executive to rally the students behind an issue, such as the Westmoreland issue, and protest it and do whatever we need to do to fix the problem at hand, to represent students the right way.
DuFour: Absolutely, I definitely agree. Shared governance is really important on our campus, but if we are to be elected we would certainly take a strong stance on any issue that affects so many students. So we would absolutely work with the administration all that we could, but we would certainly hold our ground on important issues to students.
Emerald: 20 seconds left. Do you guys want to add anything?
DuFour: Happy elections.