Eric Bailey, a junior planning, public policy and management major, is running for president. Charlotte Nisser, a junior journalism and international studies major, is running for vice president.
Q: There are, at last count, 10 tickets running for ASUO Executive, which is more than previous years. What do you think will set yourselves apart from other candidates?
Three things: Our experience, our strong platform and our deep knowledge of the issues. Together we cover student programs, senate, executive — we have a diverse background. We know a ton about every issue just because we’ve been involved with it so long.
Q: What is your platform?
Next year is an election year. One of our top priorities is to get out the vote. I think last year (ASUO) did a good job getting people registered, but I would like to have seen more educating the voters after registration was complete. It’s not so important who they vote for, but that they vote, because one of the main reasons our student population is overlooked is because of low voter turnout. Candidates feel like they can overlook us and win this thing easily without even fighting for our votes.
Q: What would you advocate for at the state level, and how would you carry out your plans?
A: We all know the pending state budget cuts, as well as tuition increases, are in the foreseeable future. We feel that’s probably one of our strongest issues right now. We want the people in Salem to know who we are by face and by name. We want to work with the student groups that are affected directly by budget cuts.
Q: What specific campus-oriented initiates would you champion?
A: We also believe we can work with student groups on issues of race and diversity.
Another issue is protecting student tickets. A big myth on this campus is that they’re free. They are not; we pay a huge amount. The Athletic Department knows they can sell those student tickets for three times what we’re paying for them, so it’s always a struggle to make sure we get to keep at least the same amount of tickets that we have every year.
And campus safety is also important. We’re not just spilling it out there as something to get votes. The overrealized fund — the surplus of the incidental fee — we would like to see that go toward campus lighting, as well as bringing back the “duck feet” program. It says which paths are safe to walk on. We’d repaint those, as well as fully support Saferide and the new program, Night Ride.
Q: How do you define diversity? And how do you plan on bringing diverse voices together on campus?
Diversity is not only race issues or gender issues, but also political views as well. That’s the short definition.
All of our issues touch directly to campus issues one way or another. The diversity action plan is still in the works. We need to draft it up with the cooperation of (the Multicultural Center) and (the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Alliance) — all the student groups. We can’t just go in and delegate it to student groups.
One thing we’d really like to see is to hold two town hall meetings every month where students can come with questions and concerns and we can address them right there, back and forth, one on one, and bring those back into the office.

Q: If two student groups were at odds with each other, how would you resolve the conflict?
Generally the easiest things to do is to sit down with them independently, separately, and find out what’s going on. Then we can come to an understanding of what the issues are, and then meet with them and find out what we as an executive do to make this better.
Q: If there was one thing you could change about the University instantly, what would it be?
Making sure the student voice is heard on this campus, heard in the city of Eugene and heard in Salem. We want to make sure students are not overlooked in issues regarding budget cuts, tuition, or any issue that concerns this campus.
Q: How would you do things differently than the current ASUO Executive?
We will be more accessible to student groups and students in general, whether it would be with the town hall meetings or just an open door policy and getting that diversity in the office. I think we bring very different leadership backgrounds, but we still know a ton about ASUO.