Oregon Daily Emerald: What year are you in school and what’s your major?
Kuchulis: I’m a sophomore, political science. What a cliche — political science majors running for offices.
Emerald: Where are you from?
Kuchulis: I’m from Portland, Ore. Beaverton actually, more specifically.
Emerald: How come you want to run for the ASUO Senate?
Kuchulis: I ran last year and was unsuccessful and student government is something I want to get involved in, something I think I can have a positive impact on and so I’m trying to get my foot in the door.
Emerald: What other clubs, groups or activities are you involved in on campus or in the community?
Kuchulis: I am vice president of education and programs in the Inter-fraternity Council. We recently did the Greek 201 which is an educational forum for new greek students, it went extremely successfully. I also am social director of my fraternity, Delta Sigma Phi, and have the arduous task of throwing dry parties. It is quite a bit more difficult than I had imagined.
Emerald: How are you going to make time for your senate obligations, if elected, fitting that in with your other activities and classes and class work and stuff?
Kuchulis: I take a generally light load of classes, rarely more than 13 credits, which is really kind of a pathetic number compared with people who are taking 18 or 20 credits. But, it does allow me to pursue my extracurricular activities. And so being that I have a light class load, I am fairly effective in my time management, I can balance my other responsibilities.
Emerald: How will you figure out how to spend the surplus that the senate disperses each year?
Kuchulis: I am not a 100 percent sure on the exact processes, in fact that’s something I would like to find out more on. I know ADFC specifically — I talked to Kevin Day who is just outside, who is the only returning member that I know of and actually described it in my research of the role — is more of a problem-solving type of deal where we have this issue for instance, people standing on seats at basketball games — we lost 2 rows of seats so they had to think of a way to get the Pit Crew to take a step down. Stuff like that, so as far as spending the money, it’s a process I’m looking forward to learning.
Emerald: How are you going to learn about that, what steps are you going to take to educate yourself on how that process works?
Kuchulis: There is of course trial by fire, which is just being in the situation. Also, as I stated early, I am talking with other people who have the positions I am running for. I’m also trying to familiarize myself currently with the constitution, with the rules, with the bylaws, with Robert’s Rules of Order, just figure out all the nuances of the position that I would need to know if I won it.
Emerald: How do you plan on interacting with student groups?
Kuchulis: Open mind, I guess there’s nothing else really to say. Just no biases, hear their case, and obviously just a non-biased manner.
Emerald: Are you going to actively or passively pursue getting involved and working with a variety of groups or do you see the senate seat you are running for as a place where groups come and then you’ll evaluate them fairly in that context?
Kuchulis: The groups do come come and of course everyone should be evaluated fairly. At the same time, though, I enjoy getting to know the groups and getting involved with whatever organizations I can. So while I want to explore as many campus organizations as possible, when push comes to shove, I don’t think that will be able to bias my decisions that I make.
Emerald: What are the most important issues facing the students that you would be representing if you won the election?
Kuchulis: The biggest issue that I know of currently for ADFC is the contracting of the new basketball court and how exactly seating is going to work for that, how many seats students are going to get, how that’s going to be funded. Currently, also I believe a bigger issue for ADFC is the fact that students are supposed to pay for 50 percent of the tickets through the incidental fee and currently we are paying for some minuscule amount below that like 46.5 percent, and that’s as much as we can afford currently. So it’s just a battle to keep that balance to make sure first of all that we don’t regress in our standing with the athletic department, and further more that we improve our relations and improve our current situation.
Emerald: Who pays the other 50 percent or 54 percent?
Kuchulis: As far as I know, I could be wrong of course, but it’s compensated. Like a– for the seats, like something your parents would pay, University compensates the student for that 50 percent, the athletic department.
Emerald: What do you think the most Important thing is that you should know in order to deal with the budget process?
Kuchulis: As I said earlier, probably just the nuances of the process. I think it’s important and I do look forward to attending as many meetings as possible and getting as many different facets of the senate that I can. Obviously the part that I would need to learn the most about are probably the things I don’t know.
Emerald: What topics is the Senate allowed to pass resolutions about?
Kuchulis: I know they recently tried to do that war resolution, that whether the University was in favor or not in favor of the war on Iraq. However, I am not completely clear on what resolutions and of course I could look it up — I’ve got the constitution in my back pocket and the senate rules — it’s just something I’m going to have to familiarize myself with as time goes on.
Emerald: What’s the most important part of section 5 of the student senate rules and why?
Kuchulis: Section 5, I believe is the duties of the senators and the most important part in that, probably a cliché answer but the first part of it, which is that senators should attend all meetings, they should be there all the time, they should always be present, that’s part A. And then part C which states that senators should be actively involved in 2 committees. I just think it’s good that they are active participants in the committee, that they are actively asking questions. I think it’s a comical part, but I’m sure its equally important, is subsection A of C, which states that they diligently report to the Committee on Committees. I think it’s a funny name, but I think communication is vitally important to the process.
Emerald: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Kuchulis: No. I wish the best of luck to my running mates and to everyone else running.
Anthony Kuchulis’ Interview
Daily Emerald
April 3, 2003
Kuchulis
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