Last March, University students chose Jay Breslow, a senior psychology and Spanish major from Hillsboro, to serve them as ASUO President. Before running for ASUO, Breslow worked with the University Diversity Program and the Multicultural Center, and was an advocate for Multiethnic Student Programming.
Here, the Emerald talks with Breslow about his vision for the coming school year.
Q: What is the role of the ASUO Executive?
A: We’re the representative body of the students. As the ASUO President, I’m the spokesperson for the student body. We have a lot of jobs. On one hand, we’re going to fight for student rights at the state and federal level. We’re going to lobby the government to increase financial aid, to increase the Oregon Need Grant, the Pell Grant, all of those things. We’re going to fight to make education more affordable and accessible.
I’m an activist, not a politician, and I never made any bones about that during the campaign. We’re going to get involved in movements and campaigns that are progressive. The Worker Rights Consortium issue is a hot issue, so one of the things we’re going to be focusing on is sweatshop labor.
We’re going to do fun stuff; we’re going to run creative campaigns, get people involved, get students that don’t really care about the student government. The student body is pretty disconnected from the ASUO as a representative body, so we need to find a way to facilitate some sort of relationship between the two.
Q: What is your top priority for the school year?
A: I have a staff of really excellent human beings. I know the issues that we campaigned on, but now we have 26 other people involved in the process, so we’re going to have to take those goals and tweak them, adjust them and find things that an entire staff of people can get behind.
Our slogan was ‘students have the power, let’s use it.’ Obviously we don’t have money to spend. Our power lies in our numbers, but if the ASUO is disconnected, then we have no power. If when we go to lobby at the state and federal level, if we still have the same 30 to 50 student government nerds up there, then we won’t be effective. If we have 200 people that know the issue — 200 or 2,000, however many people we can get — then we’re going to be a lot more effective.
So I want to focus on campus, what’s going on this campus that we can make better, as opposed to in past administrations. Last year they did a good job at that, at focusing on campus. I want to continue some of that work. They laid a good groundwork, but more needs to be done.
And if we can coordinate the programs of all the ethnic student unions and all the other student programs, then we’ll be a really strong and diverse team.
Q: What role will the ASUO play once the state Legislature convenes in January?
A: One of the things we’re looking at is increasing the Oregon Need Grant. Right now 12 percent of people that qualify for the need grant don’t get it. So what we’re fighting for this year in the Legislature is to get those 12 percent a chance to get the Need Grant. Then if we win that, we’re going to look at increasing the Need Grant.
Other stuff we’re working on is increasing child care for student parents. Right now the state doesn’t give any money to student parents. The federal government gives some money. But right now only about 250 student parents qualify. There’s a waiting list of about 900 students. We want the state to chip in a whole bunch of money so that we can at least cut that waiting list in half.
We’re looking at increasing funding for community colleges. We have Lane Community College, which, I’m not sure of the percentage, but a lot of LCC graduates come here after they finish their two years there. So we need to make sure that students coming into [the University] have the best possible education.
There will be a rise in tuition next year, but we have had a tuition freeze for the last 5 years. So not this year, but next year, there will be an inflationary tuition raise. In the last five years, tuition hasn’t gone up at all, so it’s just going to be bumped up for inflation. But we’ll keep an eye on that.
We know that if the Republicans take power, we’re going to be battling to keep our student fees, which we thought we won with Southworth. Last year, with Southworth, which was a Supreme Court case where they challenged student fees all the way up to the Supreme Court, we won 9-0 … which would make you think that the fight’s over, right? But the Republicans have it in their platform that they’re going to look at student fees. It’s basically looking at if student fees can fund political organizations, such as say, OSPIRG, or the College Democrats, College Republicans, or if students get to choose where their student fees go, if that’s legal. We think it is, and we’re going to fight for it.
Q: What relationship do you expect to have with the administration?
A: We get along great at this point. We need their help, and they need our help for voter registration. We have some issues on the ballot next year that I can’t talk about openly because of my position, that could drastically affect higher education, not only students, but administration. We need to have a united front for ballot measures that could drastically affect higher education.
I hope I’ve established a good relationship with the administration, and I hope to keep it that way. But I’ve kind of shown in my past that I’m not afraid of standing up to anybody, and saying what I feel. I’m also not out to piss people off, or to make people angry or to set up an adversarial relationship.
Q: What does the future hold for your office and the Worker Rights Consortium?
A: The ASUO will fight for the WRC. The reasoning behind that is because last year’s students voted for it, and by a 75 percent majority they passed the WRC. So as far as this administration is concerned, we’re in support of the consortium, and we’ll do all things in our power to do what was deemed a good thing by an overwhelming majority.
Our executive will fight to educate the campus on the decision that was made last year. Maybe we can go back and explain how it happened, and people will see that we signed on to the best monitoring organization that was available, and we’ll talk about corporatization issues, you know, what happens when corporations have too-high an influence on the University.
Some of the stuff we need to start looking at — corporatization and sweatshop labor — those issues are the new student movement. Students all over the country are fighting for this, and we need to be there with them, because there’s nothing more important to being a student than making sure that you get an unbiased education.
Q: Why should students pay any attention to student government?
A: Because we’re doing things that drastically affect their education. I mean, we’re in control of $7.5 million. That’s a lot of money. This isn’t high school student government, where you plan a pep assembly and a dance. This is $7.5 million in student money that we have to protect. We need to make sure we’re using it to the best advantage, so that students maintain some sort of autonomy.
Q: What plans do you have to keep students entertained and interested throughout the year?
A: We have a couple of ideas. One idea is an Animal House appreciation week, like re-creating the food fight scene in the Fishbowl. Fun stuff like that that gets the normal student involved, shows what students can do, organizing fun events … whatever we can do to balance the social aspects of student government with the political aspects. And mix them together — bring in a cool band here in the EMU Amphitheater, and after the band plays, we’ll have a packed house, and we’ll bring in some political candidates to debate the issues.
Q: How will you make yourself ac
cessible to students?
A: Basically I’ll be spending a lot of time around the office. [The ASUO staff will] be out and around, showing up to events. That’s part of our plan, is to be out there, accessible, and visible to all students so that they feel comfortable coming to see us if they have a problem, or when we come recruiting volunteers or interns, they’ll know we’re cool kids.