Oregon Daily Emerald: What’s your year and major?
Jordan Marx: I’m a junior, and I’m a political science major, business minor. Been here three years.
Emerald: Do you belong to any student groups or any groups on campus?
Marx: I’m a resident assistant in Barnhart. This is my fourth term as an RA and I work pretty actively with Resident Hall Association specifically. I’ve been involved in different student groups in the past. I served in OSPIRG for a little while my freshman year, but mainly I’m active as an RA right now.
Emerald: Just OSPIRG?
Marx: Freshman year I was active in OSPIRG, and sophomore and junior year I’ve been pretty active in the Resident Hall Association, the student government for housing.
Emerald: Why are you interested in student government?
Marx: I think student government is, on the self-interested level, I think it’s an excellent way to learn and gain experience in things like running organizations, being a leader, but on the more community level, I think it’s an excellent way to give back to the community, because I feel I have experiences that are definitely applicable to the community and that I can give back to the community with what I already know.
Emerald: How will you figure out how to spend the surplus?
Marx: Well, I think one of the primary difficulties of politicians and bureaucrats is limited resources with infinite wants and needs. The best way I can think of to distribute fairly the surplus that we have is from a very fiscally moderate position. I understand that student groups have people behind them, and these people have needs, they find fulfillment in these student groups, and you can’t really deny a student group funding because it’s important to them. But on the other hand, we do have a limited budget, and we’ve had economic problems through out the country. A variety of organizations are having budgetary problems, so we have to be a little bit more fiscally conservative than we’d like to be in distributing funds.
Emerald: What aspects of a group might make you think you should be more fiscally conservative with them as opposed to another group?
Marx: That’s a good question. Well, I don’t think there are any of my own — when approaching this job, I can’t approach it from my own ethical or personality or political standards of what I think is a beneficial organization from a non-beneficial organization. The best way I can approach deciding what group gets funded is by looking at what niche they fill in the community, I guess. I can’t really make any ethical judgments based on ‘this group is more deserving of funds because they are a conservative group or liberal group’ or make those distinctions.
Emerald: How will you interact with student groups?
Marx: I’d make myself available. I know that you’re required to have office hours as a student senator. I would definitely, with whatever problems came up, I would definitely make myself available to discussion and compromise.
Emerald: What are the most important issues facing the student groups you represent?
Marx: I think both intellectual and cultural diversity is very important. Again, coming from a moderate perspective, I definitely think there’s a place for every viewpoint on campus. I think it’s important to further these different viewpoints and experiences rather than to encourage or try to discourage one viewpoint or another viewpoint. I also think that — I would also like to work on some issues with disabled students. I have a learning disability myself, and I’ve definitely had a supportive community around me of family and friends involved in my success as a student and as an RA being involved on campus. And I’d love to work with Disability Services to somehow see what ASUO can do to benefit disabled students on campus.
Emerald: Do you have any specific ideas already?
Marx: I don’t have any specific ideas on the top of my head. I definitely want to — I’m registered with Disability Services right now — and I definitely want to interview and get a feeling for what Disability Services needs or feels like they need to further the success of disabled students on campus.
Emerald: What’s the most important part of Section 5 of the Student Senate Rules and why?
Marx: I haven’t gone over them
Emerald: Section 5 is the duties of student senators.
Marx: Well, I know that the primary duty of being a student senator is to distribute the surplus. Make decisions based on whatever resolutions come up to the student senate. I know that you’re required to have office hours, and I know that there are student senate meetings weekly, and that you’re required to be on a couple committees within the student senate, and I guess my main experience has been in student groups budgets and dealing with that. And I would assume that’s what the student senate mainly deals with as well.