Commentary

Political Etiquette 101

Higher education is not cheap. Students pay for every credit hour of class that they take. Some may pay in-state prices--others may pay more--students may pay in one flat rate every semester or they may make payments, but if you are a student, the ultimate truth is you could balance your check book by the amount of time spent in class.

Now with that in mind, consider what goes on in classes at the University. Time is money, and at the University it is all too often a waste of money.

I've noticed that an increasing amount of time is being monopolized by people other than professors in my classes.

One student group or another always seems to have an announcement to make, two or three times a week in some classes. It is especially bad at the beginning of the year, as student groups try and drum up interest and recruit new members.

A few weeks ago in one of my classes, a member of OSPIRG stood up and encouraged everyone to come to a general interest meeting OSPIRG was having to recruit new members. Now I would have no problem with this normally, but this representative of OSPIRG did not stop there. He went on to describe a great deal about OSPIRG and began to admonish students about the raping of the forest, toxins in the water supply, how OSPIRG is responsible for all that's beautiful and sacred in this world, etc.

He also had some lackeys on hand who went around the room passing out literature for OSPIRG and forms which you could sign your name and address to so OSPIRG could contact you and get you involved. By the time he was done talking and his goons had passed out all of these papers (ever notice that for a supposedly environmental group, OSPIRG prints about ten times as much stuff as any other student group on this campus?) and collected them back from 120 odd students, almost a third of my class time was gone.

Now students already give this organization over $120,000 a year, and I for one found myself a little frustrated with the fact that I find myself paying them even more with my class time. It is valuable, minutes are dollars, and I have no desire to pay someone money under the pretext of education only to show up in class and find someone other than my professor spewing political sentiments in my general direction.

Not that I would appreciate if my professor was the one who was spewing the political sentiments. Two weeks ago, a professor of mine took some time out of the beginning of her class, and with the impending election she encouraged everyone to get out and vote. At first, I welcomed her attempt to remind a lecture hall of over 300 slackers of their civic responsibility, but soon her remarks moved in a different direction.

"And when you get out and vote, I want you to pay special attention to measure 47." At this point I began to wonder what the hell was going on here. She continued, "While the law prevents me from telling you how to vote..." Now I was upset at this point, because for the next five to ten minutes, that is exactly what my professor did.

Now she did not explicitly tell students to vote one way or the other, but she told them about another university she had worked at where the state had passed an initiative regarding property taxes (It was totally unclear what it actually did or whether or not it was comparable to measure 47) and how the university suffered, tuition went up, programs were cut, the library drastically reduced its hours and so forth. At this point, most of the students in the class were either scared into voting against it or weren't disillusioned enough to realize a Ph.D. is just a piece of paper and might have voted according to their respected professor's learned discourse.

While she may not have told students how to vote, a one-sided discussion is hardly a fair summary, as well as being unacademic. Aside from being one-sided, the professor had admittedly just moved to Oregon and much of her assessment struck me as just plain inaccurate when she referred to other state issues like measure 5. Measure 47 could also not even be remotely tied to the subject matter of the course, and this made me wonder about the motivations for such a speech.

I honestly believe that my professor had no ulterior motives for her speech about saving higher education, but she had better be more careful in the future about how her remarks might be perceived. It could be said that her salary might be affected by measure 47 and that she might be acting out of self-interest, rather than simply being politically active.

Unfortunately, there is often a blurry line between political- and self-interest. That does not mean I wish for student groups and professors to become less politically active. I would just like to see them be more considerate about how they do it. Waiting until students are trapped in class is not the correct time to be politically active, especially when they are throwing down hard earned dollars to learn.

There are plenty of ways to get messages out to students without cutting in on their class time. Many student groups put announcements on overheads as students are coming in before class begins. Campus radio, KWVA, runs public service announcements. Take out an ad in the Emerald. And dammit, we have enough wooden bulletin boards on this campus to build about ten houses. If all else fails, start your own magazine and rant all you want.

Outside of class time it should be no trouble getting a message out to students. This may take a little effort, but it is the right way to go about it. If this still doesn't get students excited, be prepared to accept the fact that they might not care, and don't shove the message down their throats.

And for those on the receiving end of these messages, if you don't like how your class time is being used to push someone else's agenda, do something about it.

Usually all it takes is talking to the professor. I approached my professor about her comments regarding measure 47 and she was quite receptive and even somewhat apologetic. Most other professors I've encountered are also sensitive to this matter. If that doesn't solve the problem you can always bring out the big guns and talk to the Provost of Academic Affairs. While you may be graded by a professor, you pay enough of their salary for them not to go unaccountable to your concerns.

Anyway, I don't see this problem getting any better until more students stand up and complain. I know I'm not the only one in class who groans whenever student groups make lengthy presentations in class or when professors stray away from the subject matter at hand. I usually hear groaning all around me. Most of the time that someone gets away with something, it's only because other people let them.

Mark Hemingway, a junior majoring in Journalism, wrote this for the Oregon Commentator