Letters

Salary negotiations

As president of the Portland State University Chapter of the American Association of University Professors (PSU-AAUP) and a 20-year faculty member at PSU, I appreciate the support that the students have shown for the faculty on this campus. After a two-year salary freeze imposed by Gov. Kulongoski a few years ago, the faculty worked together with the administration, students and alumni to impress upon the legislature that the continued disinvestment in higher education was-to use a popular word these days-unsustainable. Our effort was successful. It’s a shame that it seems to be so difficult for some people to understand that faculty-working conditions are student-learning conditions.

Gary Brodowicz

Still bargaining

Thank you for your support in this long, drawn-out process. The faculty has been bargaining for almost a year, and the administration could have settled this months ago. What is just as upsetting is that at no time has the administration discussed making the salary offers retroactive-so in effect the administration and university earn interest off of the salary pool which they can spend at will. Ethically, all the salary money should be put into an escrow account so that the interest accrued can go toward salaries.

Rose Jackson

SFC accountability

I am calling on fellow students to do what is right and scrap the SFC. We need accountability in student government, and all we have seen is a convoluted mess. I hereby propose PDX Resolution # 998 calling for the immediate removal of Amanda Newberg as chair of the SFC. Ladies and gentlemen, it is time we have our student government work for us. It is time that we rid the student government of the rats, and the first to go should be Newberg! The recent case of Hyung Cho shows us that something is seriously wrong with our student fee committee. I am calling on student body President Rudy Soto to be part of the solution. We must have accountability. We don’t want our student government to look like our federal one, now do we?

William DeBenedetti

The SFC worries me

I’m concerned about the SFC members this year as a whole. The SFC members don’t seem to represent the PSU student body well. Especially when a majority of them are not the same people that the student body elected last spring. It seems to me that many of them represent their own private ideas and often have hidden agendas and biases. What worries me even more is that there are only eight students deciding on where our $12 million in student fees goes.

Anonymous

Soto’s proposal limits student voice

The SFC is out of line by limiting the voices of OIT, SOU, WOU and EOU, universities that are already disadvantaged by their smaller schools and rural locations. Soto’s proposal attempts to rewrite the voting structure such that the largest schools (PSU, UO and OSU) get the dominant control (5, 6 and 7 votes, respectively) to the other schools’ one vote each. The OSA needs reform, certainly, but the proposals made by the Soto administration limit voices of students, rather than vocalize.

Anonymous

Growth at the radio station

First of all, I’m glad the Vanguard printed a letter about KPSU, regardless of the letter’s tone. In my opinion, Austin Rich (the author of the letter) contributed greatly to KPSU, and it’s a shame that he no longer works in the sub-basement. However, I’m optimistic that the radio station will grow with some help from our new academic adviser and from the support of students and community members. We can work together to create a great resource for PSU and a great radio station for Portland. While there are those who don’t understand how much community members have contributed to the station, I’m hoping that these people will see what KPSU would be without community member programming or financial contribution: a mere shade of what it is now.

Anonymous