The ASUO’s new president takes office today, having been elected promising an administration that reaches out to students like none before.
University junior Emma Kallaway has been involved in the ASUO since her freshman year, an eternity in a candidate pool constantly drained by graduation and transfer. That insider status throws in stark contrast the accession of her predecessor, senior Sam Dotters-Katz, who said he did not even know the then-ASUO president’s name when he applied for election.
What will that experience bring to Kallaway’s presidency? She sat down with the Emerald on Monday to discuss her plans.
ODE: Could you tell our readers something about you that they still probably don’t know, even after all we’ve written?
EK: Hmm. (Long pause) Well, on a personal level, I come from a first-generation Italian family on my mother’s side and I’m second-generation Irish on my father’s side. So growing up, there was a very interesting mix of culture and loud family reunions and it’s very important to me to continue those cultures.
So I’m an Irish dancer. All my cousins are on my dad’s side. And my mom taught me how to cook when I was real young, so I’ve just been increasing my culinary expertise. I made spaghetti and meatballs for (ASUO Vice President) Getachew (Kassa) last night.
ODE: Name one issue that will arise while you’re president.
EK: I think one of the most important things during our presidency is going to be the development of younger students on this campus to involve them in organizing and involve them in the ASUO, involve them in a variety of elements of our executive staff, and also coming up with a different way to expand our internship program.
We are not technically in a legislative session this year, and we need to make sure that, when we have a bigger vote drive next year and we have a legislative session, it really needs to be hit hard and address the tuition increases, we need to have a body of students that have the skills needed to be able to address those frustrations next year.
ODE: How will you address the tuition increase?
EK: Well, we’ll be having an emergency legislative session in February. We’ve hired two legislative affairs students for executive staff, as opposed to the original one, because we honestly feel that there’ll be issues on the federal level and on the state level that need to be addressed and it’s most important that we have two students do that. And we chose very capable individuals (senior Rachel Cushman and freshman Robert Greene) and I’m excited.
ODE: Will you be doing anything to lower the cost of attending the University other than legislative advocacy?
EK: Yes. On campus, we’ll be addressing the cost of books by working within the generosity of the bookstore to increase the number of books we have in the course reserve. Very often, when students don’t have to buy very, very expensive books, they can use them in the course reserve. That lowers the cost of education.
We’re also looking at what can be done from the (incidental) fee level. This year, we saw a buy-down in the i-fee to lower the over-realized amount and I think that you need to do that within reason. You need to always have a fund of money for a rainy day, but also be addressing the pocketbooks of students means looking at continuing the buy-down process.
ODE: Your opponents in the election called your campaign dirty and underhanded. What will you be doing to include them in your government?
EK: We had a very large hiring process. We asked everyone from all the campaigns to be included. We had the greatest turnout of applicants that any ASUO executive has had on campus that anyone can remember in the ASUO office. And that really meant for us meticulously going through at least 40 interviews and a large number of students above that even applied that we weren’t able to give interviews to.
And we’re hoping that we can find a way to include students outside of just the executive staff, whether that means creating a new type of executive member, maybe a junior executive member that works with our executive staff, or whether that means putting a different number of students on student-faculty committees and trying to outreach to them.
I think it’s really important to be finding new ways. We can’t always pay students, which is unfortunate, but I think what we can do is always give students the opportunity to expand their skills and their passions on campus and give them the position and the tools to make what they need happen.
ODE: How will you change the way the internship program works?
EK: We saw this year that ASUO had a Graduate Teaching Fellow for the internship program and we will also now be hiring (an Oregon Student Association) campus organizer, so we’ll be having either two positions in the office or working on finding a way to make sure we have an internship program. At the same time, the campus organizer can expand students’ interest in legislative issues and federal affair issues to bring students in, to teach them how to organize, to teach them to run large campaigns and also have that internship program, so we’ll have multiple ways of providing leadership opportunities for students.
ODE: What are the effects of Dotters-Katz’s curtailing the Oregon Student Association?
EK: Well, I think during the legislative session, it would have been very beneficial to have a campus organizer on campus because there could have been more lobbying done. Sam (Dotters-Katz) did a great job of lobbying with the administration and working on his own ability to lobby. And then I think there could have been more students going up to Salem and lobbying if we had a campus organizer, so if we had an emergency legislative session in February and we are looking at a vote coalition needing to be re-addressed, not during my administration, but during the next, then I think a campus organizer is important to have if we are going to be developing the skills of students in order to address those issues.
At the same time, I think it’s always appropriate to critique how outside influences work within the ASUO. Although, I think that you can maintain a really professional and honest relationship with a campus organizer who works for the executive. (It is) about emphasizing that relationship and saying, “We really need you to work on these things that we’re prioritizing.” And then you’re not just succumbing to outside influences, but you’re really out there working as a team.
ODE: How will you ensure the Knight Library is open 24 hours next year?
EK: We’ve seen the trend of different ways of funding that and I think that, if something is a priority for students, then we have to continue to creatively find ways to fund it. So we will be doing a number of things.
We will be talking to the administration, specifically the student affairs office to say, “Here’s the data for how many students think this is important,” and really outreaching to find out that students really desire that service and then working with the administration to partially fund that.
We will also be, then, looking for outside fundraising sources like I mentioned through the fundraising coordinator. And then the third avenue would not be ideal but (it is) looking at the surplus funding. We have had a surplus funding for the last 10 years. And would it be appropriate to work on an earmarked amount of money out of the surplus for the next couple of years if we need to do that while we are moving out of this recession? So there are a number of ways of doing that and we’ll be working on all those avenues.
ODE: How will you summarize your administration when it’s over?
EK: The ideal summary that I would like to have is to be able to come here and say to you, “We worked really hard to create an ASUO whose culture is based in the service of students.”
So, it’s important that the ASUO is a welcoming space. It’s important that the ASUO has people inside that office tha
t are working hard for students, that smile and ask if you need anything when you walk through the door, that work very closely if students ever have a question. And working on changing a culture is very challenging but it will be important to us because students said during the campaign, “I don’t know much about the ASUO and I feel uncomfortable walking in the office.” That’s not acceptable. We need to work on that. We also need to address the funding issues of this university. So, like I said, we’ve hired a fundraising coordinator. We need to look at our budgets closely. We’re going to be identifying criticisms from other students and working towards bringing those in to our administration.
We will not be without a fault and I will never say that, but I’ll have the opportunity to take that criticism and move forward and, if we can look at that professionally, then we will have achieved success.
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Q & A with Emma Kallaway
Daily Emerald
May 25, 2009
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