With her term in office set to begin this month, ASUO President-elect Emma Kallaway faces the challenge of assembling a staff for her administration after a campaign in which she drew support from a broad coalition.
Kallaway won April’s general election with support from all three of the opponents she beat in the primary and she allied with candidates from other campaigns all down the ballot. However, Kallaway and Vice President-elect Getachew Kassa said keeping their allies happy while people from different campaigns apply for positions will not be a problem.
“There’s always an opportunity to be involved,” Kassa said. “Just because you don’t get the position you want doesn’t mean you won’t be involved.”
A committee that will include Kallaway, Kassa and their campaign manager, University senior Alison Fox, will select staff members. Kallaway said the fourth committee member will be someone from outside her campaign to ensure the fairness of the process.
“We need to be including other people in the hiring process,” Kallaway said.
Two slates of candidates ran against Kallaway in the primary election, then endorsed her after their own presidential candidates lost. Both the True Blue Student Coalition and the Students First slate contained about 20 candidates, plus more students on staff who weren’t running in races but were interested in the ASUO.
However, True Blue campaign manager Daniel Ronan said he is confident Kallaway will make fair hires and consider applicants from all campaigns. He said he doesn’t believe Kallaway promised staff positions to people within her campaign before she was elected president. He said that is not how it is done.
“It’s putting the cart before the horse to put together a cabinet before you win an election,” Ronan said.
However, Marcus Krieg, campaign manager for Oregon Action Team, said he does not expect students from his slate to be selected for Kallaway’s staff. After a bitter and chaotic contest between Kallaway and OAT’s Michelle Haley, the day general elections results were posted, Krieg called Kallaway’s a “really dirty, really shitty campaign” and said he feared OAT’s candidates would be silenced by Kallaway’s administration.
“I’m not in Kallaway’s head,” Krieg said. “I couldn’t tell you (whether she will hire OAT candidates). But based on what I saw during the campaign, my gut tells me they won’t.”
Krieg and Ronan both said they do not know whether anyone from their campaigns is running.
The only position for which the application deadline has already passed is the ASUO chief of staff. Kallaway said five students applied for the position, although she and Fox declined to name them. “It seems like a pretty personal thing,” Fox said. However, ASUO Gender and Sexual Diversity Advocate Heather Spickard said she applied, and Fox confirmed that University junior Ella Barrett, who worked on Kallaway’s campaign, did so as well.
Students First presidential candidate Carina Miller confirmed Wednesday that she also applied for chief of staff.
In preparation for the transition, Kallaway has revamped the structure of the 16-person ASUO Executive staff, eliminating three positions, creating five more and rewriting the job description for every position in the organization.
The changes will eliminate the staff’s international student advocate, marketing coordinator and communications director. In their places, Kallaway will create the positions of event coordinator, fundraising coordinator, graduate and law student advocate, public relations coordinator and Webmaster.
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