Rick Reed is a 20-year-old sophomore studying business with minor in French and investment finance; he is also minoring in economics.
Oregon Daily Emerald: How would you figure out how to spend the senate surplus?
Reed: Well, I think the best way to do that is to cut costs. I mean, you’ve got a certain amount of money I really am not the biggest fan of raising the incidental fees much at all, but hopefully we can find just a few more ways. Every dollar counts and we can make it work.
Emerald: Specifically, what would you spend the surplus on?
Reed: Well, to be honest right now —
Emerald: Do you know what the surplus is?
Reed: Well, we have quite a bit of extra money right now.
Emerald: Do you know what the senate surplus is?
Reed: No I don’t
Emerald: It’s the surplus that’s given to the senate every term to send on special requests by student groups — it’s an amount of money you have every term so what sort of criteria would you use in deciding how to spend that money?
Reed: Okay — well, definitely look at how they spent their money in the past, what kind of budgeting they do and how efficiently they are able to do it and what the general benefit is to the students at the University of Oregon. If they can affect 10,000 students with $5,000, I would be very impressed, if they benefit five students with 10,000 dollars — yeah…
Emerald: How would you interact with student groups?
Reed: Face to face as much as possible — I mean, just as much interaction as possible. I think that’s been a serious detriment to the PFC in the past.
Emerald: Including this year?
Reed: This year, they’ve done a lot better. They have done a lot better and I think it’s shown. They — I believe they had a record number, a recordly low number of groups that didn’t get any funding, that didn’t file and I think that’s in direct part due to the communication, just being sure they know of your office hours, being sure that you go out and meet them, try to attend as many of their meetings as possible.
Emerald: How do you usually communicate with people: by phone or e-mail, or what’s your preferred method?
Reed: If at all possible, I like to set up face to face meetings — obviously it’s a lot more time consuming, it’s hard to get everybody scheduled in there.
Emerald: How many student groups do you know right now, are you in contact with?
Reed: Contact, I’d say maybe 10 to 15.
Emerald: Ten to 15? Name a few.
Reed: I’m in Delta Sigma Phi fraternity, a greek organization, there’s the Toastmasters.
Emerald: Are you in that as well?
Reed: No, I’ve gone to, like, two meetings.
Emerald: The groups you’re in are Delta Sigma Phi, anything else?
Reed: I attend the French (inaudible) whenever I can, it’s not a real official group but…
Emerald: How do I spell it?
Reed: I’d just say the French circle.
Emerald: OK.
Reed: Basically just circle Francais.
Emerald: And, you were telling me some groups you’ve come into contact with, like Toastmasters — what else?
Reed: Let’s see — there’s ISA: international students group, there’s all the ASA, JSA, all that. I’d say —
Emerald: What student groups do you respect the most right now?
Reed: What student? Well, I am a big fan of the greek system. I think it’s got a lot a lot of work to do but it also has got a huge amount of potential and it’s in a big transition point right now and hopefully we can kick it into the up slope as opposed to going downhill.
Emerald: Do you think it might be easier to transition the greeks if there were more greeks involved with student government?
Reed: Definitely, I think the more the students, greeks, get involved, the more they are well involved.
Emerald: Have you guys thought about a bunch of you running to try and do that together?
Reed: Yeah we have a coalition and it’s, I think it’s a good idea — it could be a very good idea, it could also be a very bad idea.
Emerald: So what is it?
Reed: Well, it’s a group of greeks that are all sharing resources sharing contacts in order to help each other become more involved with the ASUO and politics in general.
Emerald: How many of you guys are doing the ASUO thing?
Reed: Rough estimate I’d say about 15 are running it’s mainly for the senate we’re staying clear of the Exec and all that.
Emerald: Do you think it’ll happen?
Reed: I don’t know, to be honest. It’s the first year it’s ever been done. I hope it does. I think that it would be a benefit to the greeks as well as the ASUO to become more involved. I think each person needs to be evaluated on their own abilities, but I think that everybody that I know out of that group are very capable, very intelligent people.
Emerald: Are you from all different fraternities or one from each?
Reed: It’s quite a few from quite a few.
Emerald: And sororities?
Reed: And sororities, yes.
Emerald: Whose idea was it?
Reed: A brother of mine, Julian Pscheid.
Emerald: Julian?
Reed: Julian J-U-L-I-A-N, I believe.
Emerald: Pscheid?
Reed: P-S-C-H-E-I-D, I believe.
Emerald: Is he running himself?
Reed: He is, yup, he’s running for senate, and yeah he has kind of spearheaded it. I’m not sure if it was his idea originally but, yeah it’s an interesting idea and I’m very interested to see how it turns out.
Emerald: And you think it’s probably the first time it’s been done that you know of?
Reed: That I know of, yeah.
Emerald: Right, maybe 50 years ago —
Reed: Exactly.
Emerald: What’s the most important issues facing the student groups you represent?
Reed: Um, most important issue facing the students — well all ASUO student groups would be the ones that I would represent.
Emerald: Right
Reed: I would say just getting the word out for each individual group. I think there are a lot of students at the University of Oregon and obviously not all of them can be involved in an organization but I think the organizations could definitely use a wider net to —
Emerald: How would you do that?
Reed: More PR — I’d say just more activities that are open to the public and in the public’s eye.
Emerald: Where are you going to find the resources to have them do more activities?
Reed: Well, I think some other things might need to be scrimped on or need to be —
Emerald: Specifically?
Reed: Things like, for their own personal meetings, I don’t think buying food and drinks for a personal meeting using incidental fees would be appropriate. That would be one instance.
Emerald: Can you name any other specific ideas you have for that?
Reed: For cutting costs I’d say making sure that they’re fully aware of the benefits of their activities and maximizing as much as they can so that if they have three activities making sure each one of them is successful as opposed to having six or seven and three of them being successful.
Emerald: What’s the most important thing you should know in order to deal with the budget process?
Reed: Would be what is an efficient use of money versus what is inefficient. I mean you’ve got X amount of money you can’t go over it — if you do, you’re going to have to start charging people more and more money, which is as far as I’m concerned not an option.
Emerald: What financial experience do you have?
Reed: I’ve been treasurer of my high school, I’ve done my own personal finance for several years now, let’s see, I’ve been treasurer of a couple of different clubs at school magazines a literary magazine.
Emerald: What’s the most amount of money you think you’ve ever been in charge of?
Reed: I’d say probably in the tens of thousands — not being on the scale of ASUO, but that’s why I’m runn
ing, I mean it’s a great opportunity and I think with enough dedication and hard work there are enough people out there that do have the experien
ce have the knowledge as long as you go out
and talk to them get their input you can make it work, and you can find out exactly what needs to be done and do it.
Emerald: You mentioned knowledge — one of the few people running for another term is
actually running against you, Alyce Chong for seat 1. So what can you bring to the table, then, when you’re saying you need people who have knowledge — what can you bring to the table then as a newcomer?
Reed: Obviously a lot of hard work, a lot of dedication. I firmly believe in the ability for the student organizations on campus to affect the lives of students and I think as long as you go out and you meet with these groups, you can really make a difference in their ability to affect all of the students on campus.
Emerald: Hard work — how many hours a week would you be willing to put into this?
Reed: I’d say at least 30.
Emerald: At least 30? Do you have a full-time job or part-time job?
Reed: Part time job — I’m doing college work as painting right now, so on weekends I go up and spend about 15 hours a week there, but during the week I have plenty of time. It’s a matter of organization — you have enough hours at the head of day, you’ve just got to make use out of it.
Emerald: Okay, who’s responsible for maintaining the senate Web site?
Reed: Well, senate Web site — to be honest, I don’t know. In my opinion, I would say the who ever the senators can find, if they can find a volunteer to do it, or if they can find one among themselves.
Emerald: Generally, the senate vice president.
Reed: OK, I did not know that.
Emerald: What’s the most important part of section five of the student senate rules and why?
Reed: Section five is — is that the election procedures? No — section
five would be the election, yeah, the election procedures.
Emerald: The senate rules.
Reed: Oh, the senate rules — I’m sorry. OK, section five oh the paragraph five?
Emerald: It’s your duties and responsibilities.
Reed: OK.
Emerald: It’s in the Green Tape Notebook.
Reed: OK
Emerald: So what would be considered the most important duty?
Reed: The most important duty would be the line item budget, especially for the finance senators, is to create a line item budget for all ASUO senators. I’m sorry the EMU senators and the athletic senators would be different but as far as PFC goes, there’d be a line item budget for all the different student organizations.
Emerald: If you’re elected for this position, where will you do your homework so you know this sort of stuff before going into the budget hearing?
Reed: I would do it as soon as I’m open — well, if I was elected, I would do it as soon as I was elected. I think there’s an enormous amount of things to know as far as rules and regulations and also just common sense — what senators have known in the past done in the past what’s worked what hasn’t and I think talking to them is a very integral part, and if I was elected I would definitely go through and meet with past PFC senators and —
Emerald: Do you know any PFC senators right now?
Reed: Let’s see, I believe Joy Nair.
Emerald: Anyone else?
Reed: Alyce is the one that’s running for seat 1.
Emerald: Do you know Joy and Alyce?
Reed: I’ve met Joy, haven’t met Alyce. To be honest, no not very much I don’t know them on a personal basis, but I think that’s part of the job is to go out and meet them, just like you gave me a call we didn’t know each other before this — go up give them a call and say I’ve got this incredible test before me and I would really appreciate any sort of advice you could give me. As simple as that and then spend as much time.