Author Archives | Craig Garcia

ASUO may need to make more cuts to reach budget cap

If projected numbers reflect reality, the ASUO may be anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000 over its incidental fee budget cap for the 2014-2015 academic year.

The Athletics and Contracts, Department, and Program finance committees and EMU Board may only allocate 3.5 percent increases to their respective organizations instead of the usual 7 percent. The University of Oregon administration made a deal with the ASUO Executive branch: make the cut and the ASUO’s financial obligation to the EMU building reserve fund would be cut by $240,000.

With the administration’s deal, it is financially more efficient for the ASUO to go along with the cap. But that doesn’t make the committees cutting process any easier.

The EMU Board and DFC are expected to surpass the 3.5 percent cap. The EMU Board is currently facing a 4.4 percent increase — below an initial estimate, but over the cap. Since the EMU’s 2014-2015 projected budget is more than $6.16 million, the board is approximately $54,000 over the cap. The EMU Board is typically allowed some grace due its professional staff — budget cuts tend to mean costly staff reductions — and a renovation budget to consider.

What remains is the DFC, which remains slightly above the cap at 3.84 percent. On top of increases to Zero Waste and The Institute for Intercultural Dialogue and Conflict-Sensitive Reporting, the Mills International Center’s budget is set to receive a nearly 10 percent increase of $28,000.

“I don’t speak for senate,” ASUO External Vice President Greg Mills said. “But from what I hear there is growth in the DFC that is beyond what senate would like to see. But it’s senate’s responsibility to figure out what they would like to send back.”

The Mills Center’s $28,000 increase is meant to fund a bevy of new student positions in order to supply the high demand of its new programs and events.

“Right now there are student jobs being funded that we didn’t approve during last year’s budget season,” DFC board member Ryan Fritsen said. “The Mills Center has been paying for the new positions through their savings that they had last year.”

Some of the new positions are students working for the Mills Center’s Language Circle program, a 50-minute conversation workshop to help students work on their second-language skills.

“Essentially they’re looking to keep supplying the increasing demand,” Fritsen said. “Not doing their increase would mean that all of those jobs would be no more.”

Although the budget is due by week 10 of winter term, there is still some time to reach the cap.

Follow Craig Garcia on Twitter: @CraiGarcia

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UO hosts the Robert D. Clark Invitational Forensics Tournament for high school debate teams

If you happened to have been walking anywhere in the vicinity of the Erb Memorial Union on Friday or Saturday, chances are you noticed more than one gaggle of high school students dressed in formal attire and discussing anything from public policy to moral values as part of the annual Robert D. Clark Invitational Forensics Debate Tournament.

“We’ve had debates in Clinical Services, Northwest Christian University, The Ford Alumni Center and Knight Library,” Forensic Coordinator Benjamin Dodds said. “That’s all four corners of the University, and we’re also using every single building in between.”

The Robert D. Clark Invitational is an annual debate tournament put on by the UO debate team which hosts high school forensics competitors throughout California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and even one school from Canada. The competition is fierce, but it’s good practice for the school debate teams to see what they’re up against when it comes time for state championships.

“The point of this event is to increase the amount of opportunities for students to compete in debate,” Dodds said. “We’ve had a really impressive turnout this year, so there’s plenty of great competition.”

According to Dodds, this year’s tournament had somewhere between 50-70 more participants than in previous years and hosted seven additional high schools — 42 in total.

High school Senior William Dalquist returned to UO’s tournament from Bend, Oregon’s Summit High School after coming in second place in the parliamentary debate category last year. A parliamentary debate is when two debaters from a school go into the debate without knowing what they’ll be speaking on. Once they’re presented their topic, they have 15 minutes to prepare an analytics based argument against their competitors.

“This is the biggest tournament in the state outside of the Oregon State Championships,” Dalquist said. “It’s a really great testing ground to see how well you’ll do in State.”

Dalquist’s parliamentary debate partner Liam Maher agrees, and says that the competitive field is a lot more diverse and challenging than other tournaments.

The twenty or so members affiliated with the University of Oregon debate team have been volunteering all throughout Friday morning till Saturday night to host the event. The tournament ended at 8 p.m. on Saturday and an awards ceremony followed.

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ASUO Senate confirms Alex Davis as the Elections Board office manager

ASUO Elections Board Coordinator MacGregor Ehlen is still working on getting five members for the board, but after Wednesday night’s ASUO Senate meeting, Ehlen has one less position to worry about. On Feb. 20, Alex Davis was confirmed by the senate to be the Elections Board Office Manager.

Davis was approved, but with some hesitation.

Senate’s concerns weren’t due to his qualifications, it was that Davis was a member of Ehlen’s fraternity, which would mean that three of the currently four filled positions would have board members from the same fraternity.

“He’s in my fraternity. I know that sounds bad, but by no way does this mean we have an agenda,” Ehlen said. “He was the only applicant for this position.”

Ehlen, Spainhower and Davis are a part of Phi Delta Theta. During Davis’ confirmation, Ehlen said, “None of our fraternity brothers are running [in the election]. I can guarantee that.”

The senate had the same hesitance during the body’s Feb. 2 meeting where Drew Spainhower was approved for the Elections Board Education Coordinator. Spainhower is also Ehlen’s fraternity brother.

“When we approved Spainhower I was fine with Spainhower and Ehlen being from the same fraternity,” Sen. Taylor Allison said during Wednesday’s meeting. “Now, I do however kind of have an issue that more than half of the board is coming from the same organization. It seems to me that there is a very large conflict of interest happening.”

The majority of senate agreed with Allison’s sentiments, but time has become a critical factor for the Elections board. At the beginning of week 7, the Elections Board had its election rules approved by the ASUO Constitution Court. The election rules are typically approved during week 5.

“Those rules came out late, but I was appointed to the position in January and I should have been appointed in November,” Ehlen said when asked about the rules during the meeting.

Much like Ehlen’s two appointments had some concerns from the senate, Ehlen’s own appointment was delayed by the body due to his friendship with ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz.

“The concern is there, but we have our hands tied with getting this board filled to its fullest in the time that we have,” Sen. Nick Hughes said to Ehlen during the meeting. “In the future, I would urge you seriously to strongly up your outreach so that there is a bigger pool of applicants to draw from, and we’re not left with having to choose just the one and only applicant.”

After Sen. Josh Losner called the motion to question, the Senate voted 11-6-0, making Davis the newest member of the Elections Board. After this appointment, the board still remains one member short.

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ASUO Senate: Feb 19

Live coverage of Wednesday night’s ASUO Senate meeting:

 

Senate Agenda

Student Speaker’s List

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ASUO Senate: Feb. 12

Live coverage of Wednesday night’s ASUO Senate meeting:

 

Senate Agenda

Speaker’s List

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After facing residency struggles, Hugo Nicolas strives to give back to undocumented students

It’s a rule every college student knows: If you can’t afford something, apply for a scholarship, grant or loan to help you out.

These financial options are available to every Oregon student — almost.

Hugo Nicolas is a model of a hard working college student. He’s an economics major, an ASUO senator. He was a board member on the Department Finance Committee and he’s involved in an array of student groups that help give a stronger voice to minority groups.

“Hugo’s already self-motivated,” ASUO External Vice President Greg Mills said. “Everyone that’s met him has seen his strong work ethic. He’s always looking for new opportunities.”

Despite all of this, Nicolas still doesn’t qualify for most of the financial aid he’s applied for because he’s an undocumented student.

“I can’t fill out the FASFA because I’m an undocumented student, and the majority of scholarships require a form of documented identification as well,” Nicolas said. “The only real option for most undocumented students is to pay out of pocket, but undocumented students don’t have the money to do that.”

Nicolas came to the United States from Veracruz, Mexico with his family when he was 11 years old. Upon arrival, he didn’t speak a word of English. To address the language barrier, he enrolled in the English as a Second Language program while attending school. By the time high school rolled around, he was fluent and involved in multiple student extracurriculars including student government and junior ROTC. In addition, he was a commissioner for human rights in Salem and a city youth counselor.

Come time for college applications, all of Nicolas’ hard work took a back seat to the fact that he’s undocumented. Without citizenship paperwork, Nicolas would have to pay over $40,000 annually as an international student. With his mom in between jobs and his father working as a production metal sprayer, Nicolas’ dreams of going to college seemed impossible.

“It was really disappointing to know that college for me was going to be so expensive,” Nicholas said. “I still wanted to go to college though, so I went to Chemeketa Community College for my first year.”

While he was there, Nicolas worked three jobs to pay for his education. It was during his first year at Chemeketa that House Bill 2787, legislation offering undocumented students resident tuition to all Oregon University System schools, was approved in Salem.

Determined, Nicolas decided to transfer to the University of Oregon. During the process a donor offered to pay for his tuition for the first year.

Since he no longer has to work to pay for school, Nicolas instead focuses his efforts on helping others. As an ASUO senator and a student involved in outreach programs, Nicolas wants to make the road to success for undocumented students smoother than the one he had to traverse.

“There’s only 25 undocumented students in the OUS, and of those 25, 10 to 15 are at the UO. Having to pay for college by yourself is hard for people like me,” Nicolas said. “I want to help my brother and sister get the same opportunities I’ve been given, too.”

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ASUO Senate approves giving ASUO Executive an extra $11,000 for the spring concert

The ASUO Executive went in front of the ASUO Senate during Wednesday night’s meeting to request more money for the electronic music concert featuring RJD2 that will be happening in the spring.

The Executive approached Senate on Jan. 29 to make the same request and the body approved $24,000 for the concert. The $24,000 covers the venue cost for the Hult Center and securing the key performer, but that amount doesn’t cover additional expenses including catering, ticket services and student participation.

The Executive and the concert representatives laid out four options that they believed would best serve funding the concert.

The first option had no cost cuts and would cost the Senate $22,056.50, the second option at $11,306.50 would be a more stripped down version of the concert, the third option would cost $7,306.50 and would be in paid in part from commercial promoters. The fourth and final option would be to have the majority of the funding be by two prominent promoters, and stripping down much of the student involvement and would cost $2,306.50.

After evaluating all the options, Senate approved the second option — giving the Executive $11,307 for the spring concert.

“In total, we’ve made $14,000 in cuts,” Calyn Kelly, the concert producer, said. “We have a lot of sponsorship from the community, and we’re willing to work with promoters, but after 5 to 10 years there would be inflation from the promoters. We want to stay with the non-commercial organizations because of their consistency.”

During Wednesday’s meeting, Senate also confirmed two seats on the Elections Board Chair. MacGregor Ehlen appointed Drew Spainhower and Rujun Cao to be on the board. Senate approved both, but they were hesitant on Spainhower’s approval because of his prior affiliation with Ehlen.

Spainhower and Ehlen admitted that they were both friends and fraternity brothers, but that their relationship wouldn’t interfere with the election.

“I’ve known MacGregor for a while, but we do disagree on a lot of things from time to time,” Spainhower said. “I’m willing to set our friendship aside so that we can run a fair election.”

Senators such as Amy Jones and Nick Hughes were still concerned about their friendship though and Jones had hoped that there would be more applicants that Ehlen could have appointed instead of one of his friends.

“In the future I’d hope that the election board would have more applicants to choose from,” Jones said. “I’m uncomfortable, not with either of you as people, but with friends on elections boards overall. I’ve seen friends be on the board together in the past, and it didn’t work out.”

Despite their reluctance, Senate approved Spainhower with a 12-3-2 vote.

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ASUO Senate: Feb. 5

Live coverage of Wednesday night’s ASUO Senate meeting:

 

Senate Agenda

Speaker’s List

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ASUO Constitution Court makes two election ballot decisions

The ASUO Constitution Court made two ballot-related decisions that would be a part of the ASUO spring elections. The ballot proposals came from UO Divest and OSPIRG.

The first ruling dealt with UO Divest’s ballot proposal which asked if the UO should “sell its investments in fossil fuel extraction companies and use its power, connections and influences to address the issue of climate change,” according to the student group’s ballot proposal.

The first draft of the proposal was denied by the court due to the language not being objective enough and  language that could possibly influence voters. Upon the revised ballot proposal, the court decided that the language was objective and that it could be approved to be on the spring elections ballot.

OSPIRG proposed two ballots that dealt with financing the group so that they would be able to hire professional staffers that could conduct research and that would be presented to decision makers in Salem and Washington D.C. One of the ballots also asked if there was support for OSPIRG to be funded at $1.60 per student per term indefinitely. The $1.60 would be to help fund the organization as well as hiring a professional staffer.

The court unanimously decided not to make a decision on the to ballot proposals since they would have to implicate federal law into the decision since the ballots dealt with direct funding.

“Matters that implicate state and federal law are outside of the Court’s purview, and thus, this Court will not hear such matters,” the court wrote in its decision review. “Given that the proposed OSPIRG ballot measures and constitutional amendment implicate U.S. federal law, the court hereby formally refers these four measures to the University Administration and those who rule upon legal matters regarding the university.”

 

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ASUO Senate approves $24,000 for the ASUO Executive to spend on a new spring concert series

After originally requesting $56,153 for a spring concert featureing headlining DJ RJD2, the ASUO Senate compromised with the Executive branch by approving  a budget of $24,163 at Wed. night’s ASUO senate meeting.

The concert will employ about 300 students, doing anything from stage setup or video production to preforming in the concert.

“Usually I wouldn’t support concerts, but this specific concert is such a unique opportunity for students to be involved in and to put on a student’s resume,” Sen. Nick Hughes said. “If this was able to be pulled off and made for an annual event, this would be a fantastic opportunity for so many students.”

Much like Mallard Madness — the Macklemore concert that was approved by Senate last year — this concert would become self-funding due to ticket sales after the first initial year, meaning that Senate would only be paying for the concert once. But the $56,000 price tag was too high for many senators to approve.

“I’m hesitant because of the price point,” Sen. Amy Jones said. “I would want to fund the student discounted tickets before funding anything else.”

The venue would also be off campus at the Hult Center. The representatives for the spring concert said that the Matthew Knight Arena is much larger than the Hult Center, and they wanted to test the event out at a smaller venue in the first year instead of running the risk of producing a big concert without enough ticket sales.

“The reason I was so excited for this is because I think this really speaks to the essence of what we do as a student government,” ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz said. “It gives back to the community as well as bringing more arts and culture to the community.”

Dotters-Katz was the Executive representative that stood with the students and producers of the upcoming spring concert event.

Due to some concerns from the concert producers that they would not be able to reserve RJD2 as a headliner for the event without any money for another week, Senate was willing to approve the request at Wednesday night’s meeting — but not without cutting out some expenses.

“Originially I was kind of hesitant, and I still am, but at the end of the day I echo Sen. Hughes’ remarks,” Sen. Josh Losner said. “If they’re able to make this sustainable for every year, then I’m in support for this event.”

After discussing for an hour what could possibly be cut from the price, Senate voted to approve the Executive’s request for $24,163.

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