Fifty-eight architecture students from the University’s Portland Center have filed grievances with the ASUO to protest paying incidental fees without receiving services in return and to ask for their money back.
About 80 students at the Portland satellite campus pay $184.61 per term in incidental fees but do not receive bus transportation, access
to recreational facilities and tickets to athletic events that students in Eugene can access
for free.
The written grievances include requests for the University to refund more than $37,810 in fees. Many also recommend the ASUO work with the Portland Student Action Council to provide services to Portland students, saying “students will be encouraged to file grievances each term” if the problem isn’t addressed.
ASUO Student Senate Ombudsman Stephanie Erickson said the grievances fall outside the Senate and Executive’s purviews
because student leaders can allocate money
but cannot determine how much students pay in fees.
Although Executive officials initially said they would consider the issue, ASUO Vice
President Mena Ravassipour previously told
the Emerald the matter was beyond the
Executive’s hands.
University administrators have formed a committee to analyze fees at the request of Vice President for Academic Affairs Lorraine Davis and may make a recommendation before
the end of the year, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Terri Warpinski previously told
the Emerald.
Members of the committee could not be reached for comment on Monday.
PSAC Interim President Gary Blackwell said his group organized the grievances after earlier attempts to work with ASUO and University officials failed to produce results.
“I felt it was getting to the tipping point and time to look into the grievance thing a little
closer,” he said.
He said PSAC leaders requested a grievance form and created a guide sheet showing how much Portland students have paid in incidental fees based on the number of years they have been in Portland.
“We tried to take a lot of the leg work out and let people know what was going on,” he said.
Blackwell said Erickson and Senate President James George told him the Senate has difficulty reaching quorum and will soon experience a high turnover rate, perhaps limiting its ability to act.
“I got the impression from them … that it won’t be resolved this term, that it may be continued to next year,” he said.
Blackwell said the grievances aren’t focused on reimbursement as much as bringing attention to the fact that the group’s concerns haven’t been resolved.
“The overall goal is to obviously eliminate this problem that occurs every year and that’s getting the services up here,” he said. “We feel cheated, and in all honesty we made, I thought, some pretty strong efforts.”
He said the group may
send copies of the grievances to University administrators.
“We feel like the ASUO, while their intentions may be good, we don’t know that they’re going to get the job done,” he said. “It’s gotten to the point where it’s just outrageous.”
He added that ASUO leaders didn’t immediately deal with the problem and waited before responding that they couldn’t address the issue.
“They used it as a stall tactic,” he said. “How many months did it really take them to figure that out?”
He said the group wants to focus on events and coursework “rather than waste our time worrying about bus fare.”
Blackwell added that there is a perception among Portland students that administrators are ignoring the group’s concerns because many
of the students in the group will
graduate this year.
But he said attendance of PSAC meetings has been consistent and
the group recently held elections for next year.
“It’s been really promising how much of a turnout we’ve had,”
he said.
Students at Portland satellite file grievances
Daily Emerald
May 9, 2005
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