No Talking, Just Head

When the race for the position of ASUO Executive kicked off last spring, Matt Scotten and Glen Banfield were, in their opinions, innocent bystanders. As the field of candidates began to fill out, however, Scotten realized something had to be done.

"The thing that attracted me to the position the most," Scotten said, "was the fact that I thought I had a sense of what was important and what the most effective way to address student needs and concerns on this campus was, and just the overall mission and goal of what I thought student government should be. When I saw candidates come out of the woodwork last spring, I just didn't see anyone that represented that for me."

After a successful campaign, Scotten, now ASUO President, and Banfield, Vice President, have taken a decisively pragmatic approach to their term in office.

"We're not going to try to tackle every single issue," Banfield said. "We are going to focus on certain issues that are true to us."

Scotten and Banfield have settled on three major areas of student interest to address: boosting student involvement with the state legislature, campus safety and racial diversity issues dealing primarily with the retention of students of color.

Already, they've delved into programs which promise to at least address each issue. "A little bit helps, every little bit counts. We know we're not going to get the world."

Banfield believes that recruitment and retention is primarily an issue of campus atmosphere.

"[The ASUO office] would like to develop a team of students between the MCC and all of the student unions that would work to help incoming freshmen--plugging them into different programs, making them feel comfortable with different programs, and making them feel like they're a part of the campus community."

Banfield, who transferred to UO last year, has also been an advocate of increasing the number of faculty members of color.

"When I came to the University, I had some problems with some of the professors that we have, just because we did not see eye to eye. Our philosophies were totally different on certain subjects. I felt like I was paying X amount of dollars, and [the professors] weren't here to facilitate my education."

Banfield indicated, however, that this was not necessarily solely a racial concern.

According to Scotten, Campus Safety concerns fall into two main categories. First, he cites the physical environment on campus as a growing problem.

"People want it safe, and the obvious part of that is lighting," Scotten said. "We would like to continue the on-going debate on lighting, trying to get more."

Scotten is planning on working with the UO Foundation in the hopes of generating money via donations from alumni interested in sponsoring light fixtures.

"Why our lighting is so damn expensive on this campus is because this is a historic campus, so they will only install those antique green lamp posts which are something like $12,000 a pop."

Policy issues such as the conduct code and the grievance process are also a big part of the ASUO's campus safety agenda.

"We need a conduct code that's effective," Scotten said, "with strong language that outlines what is and isn't acceptable."

Scotten is also dissatisfied with the University's grievance process. "[The grievance process] was designed at the turn of the century to handle things like academic dishonesty, maybe a fraternity fight," he said. "But now the reality on campus is that all sorts of property crimes and violent crimes are being put through the same process, and it's not really designed to handle it. It's not appropriate that the University has its own system that is separate from the regular court system to handle these issues."

In further efforts dealing with campus safety, Scotten and Banfield have re-established the position of safety coordinator, which was dismantled in 1994.

Though Scotten and Banfield have clearly worked to prioritize and attain their goals since being elected last spring, their biggest criticism remains their lack of experience.

Banfield, who acted as State Affairs Coordinator for six months last year has only been at the University for a year.

Though Scotten has served briefly as Elections Coordinator, Programs Coordinator and a year as Federal Affairs Coordinator, he nonetheless has relatively limited governmental experience. He even admits that he "didn't realize the scope of the job at first."

Inexperience, however, doesn't seem to bother Scotten and Banfield, who believe that their outsider perspective actually helped to distinguish them from the rest of the candidates last spring.

"A lot of people would think that [inexperience in government] is a very good thing. One of the qualities that we added to the student body office is that we're starting fresh with a new perspective."

Ed Madrid, a freshman, is as utterly toothless as this article would lead you to believe