I Hate the University of Oregon

The University of Oregon used to be about the last place I would expect to push me toward a more conservative way of thinking. But that’s exactly what’s happened. On the cusp of graduation, I find myself happy, healthy and ready to start a new career. Yet I also find myself more fiscally conservative, suspicious of people’s motives and questioning the validity of the far left. For making me feel almost like a Republican, I hate the University of Oregon.

The University of Oregon is an institution of higher learning that handles its financial and academic stability like the Blazers respond to playoff pressure. In the face of challenging odds, we somehow find a way to make the situation even more ridiculous. We’ll fire one of our most successful athletic coaches, but won’t hire qualified professors to teach fundamental academic courses. It’s a clash of political styles that makes moderate Democrats the conservative base, and trust-fund, aspiring Marxist revolutionaries the dominant voice of authority. It’s a place where in the 21st Century we have former Reagan campaign volunteers leading a bad punchline called the anarchist community. And that’s just in the Political Science Department.

If University administrators and student leaders took more of a hands-off approach to the individual liberty of their patrons and focused more attention on promoting academics, community services and fund-raising efforts, the mood would still favor the left — but at least you wouldn’t have to bother anyone who doesn’t want to be bothered. Institutions of environmental activism on campus claim to have played a role in preserving 65 million acres of national forest land last year, which should be just enough to satisfy their demand for political posters next year. Suddenly, I find myself wanting to become a yuppie.

Liberal fundamentalism is the status quo on campus, enforced with nearly the same methods religious conservatives use to push oppressive ideology upon the non-secular population. It’s a faith-based initiative with little to no basis in reason. Most of all, I simply wish those with the unfortunate need to label themselves political activists would just stop preaching to and leeching off the converted. How many times do I need to be reminded that I represent the “dominant paradigm of the sexually oppressive and racist homophobic iconoclastic corporate monolith dragon?” I thought I just wanted to buy a decent pair of running shoes. I guess if you had to explain it to me, I just wouldn’t understand.

Perhaps the best metaphor for the University can be found in one of its very own creations: the EMU amphitheater. Both are paid for by a large amount of student fees and both seem to hold the potential for a larger purpose.

Of course, in reality both see their vision mostly unrealized and look really depressing on a cold, rainy day. Both also play host to an assortment of shitty music, but the University has an entire academic department dedicated to that purpose, while the amphitheater is randomly filled with near-homeless aspiring jam-band types. With the UO and its amphitheater, their most effective activities seems to be when they are used as a bastion of shame. The amphitheater with its rotating schedule of Bible Jim, anti-abortion groups and theater department skits. The University, with its near-bottom-of-the-nation rated residence halls, deficit feeding EMU and women’s volleyball team. And, of course, both have symbolic leadership in the form of a few strategically placed knobs. Pray for rain. Actually, don’t worry about it, it’s going to rain anyway.

With the millions that are funneled into student fees, you’d think students might actually have some control over the direction of their academic investment. That money could be used to build new computer labs, increase shuttle services, or at least put better-paid and more qualified teachers in the classroom. Instead, a small group of near mongoloid zombies fight to hold various non-university entities “accountable,” and it all adds up to something just short of meaning.

If love and hate are intertwined emotions, then perhaps I cannot fairly say that I truly hate the University of Oregon. After all, if there is one thing lacking in my heart for this establishment, it’s affection. Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk couldn’t get a job on the Emerald staff and former United States Senator Paul Simon couldn’t even bear to finish his degree here. There must be something wrong with this place beyond the open-mic poetry night in the Buzz coffeehouse.

About five years ago, the University seemed like it was heading in the right direction. We’d been moving up the academic rating tiers, our athletic teams had been competitive on a national level and the alumni were, until last year, happy to make up the difference in the lack of public funding. Unfortunately, the new voices at the podium are a lot like the same old voices that contributed to the University’s previous failures; bloated and immune to reason.

Bureaucracy works when it’s able to evolve and meet new demands. While the University community seems willing to bend to public and political pressures, the latest experiments in liberal activism controlled by select elites has been unable to overcome the major problems still facing the University: academic excellence and a shrinking public budget. If those directing the future of the University of Oregon truly want it to have a successful future, they need to learn and appreciate the delicate balance between activism and fiscal security.

These problems can’t be addressed overnight, and they can’t be fixed by simply infringing on the liberty of students through greater taxes on their academic pursuits. We didn’t have a problem getting that message across to conservative extremists like Jerry Falwell. Now, the same attention must be paid those on the far left who are quickly turning the University of Oregon into their own brave new world. You’ve helped turn a lifelong liberal Democrat into a moderate libertarian.

This is probably the best route for my own future, but it doesn’t bode well for the success of a University that is jeopardizing its academic and financial credibility.