Student aid cuts
Mr. Bush needs to be impeached before he destroys this county all the way. First sending troops to Iraq for no reason except imitating his father and being remembered for something. Fighting terrorists in their home is not enough, he had to invite them over and let them feed on the American economy and possibly impose danger. Cutting loans is insane. If the student does not live with his parents he will have a hard time completing his academic goal, as he has to get a job to get by, and taking fewer classes will prolong his time in school. Education is the future of this country. Cutting corners on things like that will not help Bush to cut deficits and restore the economy. It will definitely hurt it in the long term. But he doesn’t care as he won’t be president any more. I am very disappointed with government right now – seems like dictatorship is crawling up on us. Can’t wait till next election.
Jess
Pre-med, N.J.
Endorsement
The Vanguard articles are severely biased this year. As a graduate student who also completed my undergrad work at PSU, I’ve followed the Vanguard and the ASPSU as much as I could over the years. The Vanguard seemed to be a publication that strived to cover news stories with as little bias as possible until this year (at least for the seven years I’ve been at PSU). The editorial board is claiming in this article that a vote for the Klute/Johns slate would be a vote for the status quo. Have they forgotten that the status quo is the Progressive slate? The current ASPSU is those who ran as the Progressive slate. The current ASPSU has failed to put on any real community-building events, has failed to publish anything to allow working students (such as myself) to access much of anything electronically, and has tried repeatedly (according to the Vanguard) to avoid following its own rules by missing deadlines and failing to post agendas. How does voting for Morse/Bufton bring an appropriate maturity and experience to ASPSU to work with legislators? While the Oregon Student Association helps ASPSU to train and prep the students to go lobby legislators about higher education issues, there’s only so much that training can do.
Furthermore, how could the Vanguard not include anything that referenced the proposed $30 per term student fee increase? In my time at PSU, I’ve been aware of the student fee increases over the last six years. In six years, the fee only needed to be raised $10 total. Each year, the fee committee published that it added about 10 percent new groups. So if only 12 new groups were added to approximately 100 groups, how does the fee go up $30 per term? Isn’t this a significant issue to the Vanguard? And if not, why not? That’s an extra $90-120 a year that students will have to pay. That’s pretty damn significant to me and should have been covered when the Vanguard endorsed candidates. Unless, of course, the Vanguard is just endorsing its friends/lovers again this year.
I’d love to see the Vanguard actually print a letter to the editor like this. I’ve seen some rants by a conspiracy theorist, "cLEWless the clown," but I’ve yet to see an LTE published from an educated reader.
Signed,
Jamie Pettit
Graduate student
Long-time Vanguard reader
Follower of student government, even in the pathetic years like the Devaney administration
Why does the Vanguard need to tell us who they would vote for? Is the Vanguard merely some gossip rag filled with opinions, or is it supposed to be an objective paper just stating facts?
Leave your opinions out of the paper. State the facts and let the people decide.
Kieran Mullen
Elections
I have been very disappointed with the effort ASPSU has put out to promote the student elections this year. Late in January, it was barely noticeable that there were open positions that one could run for. Barely noticeable unless you either are or were an "ASPSU insider" and know how to find these things, that is. In my opinion, the average person, the person ASPSU should be trying to reach and convince that student government is not completely irrelevant and actually does serve a purpose, was and is totally off the ASPSU radar.
If it weren’t for the candidates’ limited electioneering and the Vanguard’s coverage, one would think that ASPSU simply forgot about promoting the election altogether. Many people I know had no idea this was election week. One was sure they could not even vote because they never "registered to vote" for student elections at PSU and had no idea how to access the polls through Banweb.
Last year a record number of students voted after a huge promotional blitz led by ASPSU. Will it happen again this year? Why is the first-ever use of instant runoff voting by a public institution in Oregon, an election that will help the cause of election reform at both the state university and statewide office level, not being given the attention it deserves?
Aaron O’Donnell
Portland
Stipends
The $400 per month stipend range will not even cover tuition – let alone rent. How is that an incentive to carry a full credit load again? As a union member, I am frequently engaged in cost-of-living and fair-wage agreement discussions. I would like to point out that Starbucks does not pay a living wage, Wal-Mart definitely does not pay a living wage, and many other low-wage jobs that have ensnared students do not pay a living wage either. I would list the cost of living in Portland at around $1,500 per month as a bare minimum. That is assuming that comprehensive health insurance is provided. Without such health insurance, the cost goes up to $1,750 per month. Doubling the amount of every stipend is what is in order, or if the university is concerned about maintaining an incentive for students to keep up with their studies, tuition remission.
J Klein
Union stagehand