Change from the outside

Transparency is a word that has set the tone for the student body elections this year, and Student Fee Committee Chair candidate Jil Heimensen has an agenda to take this word and put it into effect.

“The budget, so far, just isn’t as transparent as they say,” Heimensen said. “To take a look at where money is going, you have to carefully navigate through a Web site that isn’t easily readable and hunt for links that aren’t plainly noticeable. The fact is people don’t really know what they are talking about when they say transparent.”

Heimensen, a returning student that just started at Portland State in January, used to manage a dental office with her former husband, gaining experience from running a small business. She also worked as a feasibility analyst, doing reports and analyzing the amount of supply and demand there is in the housing market in a given location.

“I had to travel all the time, making reports on the road or at home,” she said.

With the housing crisis and spiraling economy, Heimensen, 39, determined it was a good idea to go back to school to study economics. She also wanted to get involved in something and found student government through a leadership conference.

“I thought, ‘Hey, that seems like a fun thing to get involved in,'” she said.

While she initially considered a run for president, she found that the SFC was a better fit given her skill set.

With the ongoing student elections, and transparency being the key focus point, Heimensen pointed out what she would do to make the SFC’s meetings and actions clear to the entire student body.

Some of her key goals:
•    Make all the information discussed in SFC, including all documents and budget information, available in one easily accessible Web site.
•    Create stronger ties between student groups and their corresponding SFC liaisons, with an online presence such as a blog.
•    Organize a Web site that gets students and student groups more involved in SFC decisions. Students could easily access student group information, ask questions and give feedback to the SFC.

Heimensen said she saw how other universities, mainly the University of Minnesota, gathered information from student groups and their student fee committees and plans on implementing them for use by Portland State.

From Heimensen’s Web site, www.psusfc.com: “My goal as SFC chair will be to serve student groups and protect the student body at large. My primary goal is to open the lines of communication regarding how students would like to see their student fees spent and assisting with the efficient allocation of those funds.”

Heimensen also aims to make it easier for student groups to comply with SFC regulations by creating fillable PDF documents, so files can be electronically kept, saving trees and also reducing the long hours involved with inputting data from paper copies.

Heimensen demonstrates proactive qualities by encouraging students to be involved via a blogging network.

“There is power in numbers. With proposed 20 percent tuition hikes, we need to let Salem know we are not OK with that,” she wrote on her Web site.