ASPSU is currently attempting to reduce the cost of the student FlexPass, one of the platform issues for this year’s student government administration.
ASPSU President Rudy Soto and his executive staff have been working on a number of other platform issues, in addition to their FlexPass campaign, recently. Here’s a look at their progress on a few key platform issues.
Extending library hours
ASPSU has had a hand in extending the hours of the Branford P. Millar Library. Because of student government’s lobbying to the library, they have agreed to extend operating hours by an extra hour. The library is now open until midnight, Monday through Thursday.
Tom Raffensperger, assistant university librarian for Public Services, said ASPSU staff are pleased with the extension, but have also requested that the library be open even longer during finals time.
Raffensperger said he is currently working to see if an extension would be possible based on the already stretched library budget. He said that a recent survey showed there was a near equal amount of complaints about the library’s hours and the library’s resources.
“The question is, do you put it [the library’s budget] into hours or resources?” Raffensperger said.
Making health care affordable
Another platform issue for ASPSU is their goal of making student health care more affordable.
This fall, the Student Health Advisory Board (SHAB) was established in part by ASPSU university affairs director Nick Walden Poublon. Tamara Kennedy, ASPSU campaign coordinator, said that with SHAB, students now have a voice in the decisions that are made regarding changes to the student health care plan.
ASPSU and the Center for Student Health and Counseling recently hosted a student health care forum discussing issues that students would like to see changed on the current health plan.
Students discussed changes to the health care plan that would help create less strain on students’ budgets. According to Kennedy, one of the major ideas discussed at the forum was a plan to let students pay a $10 co-pay for their prescriptions instead of paying the whole cost before their claim is processed.
A compilation of requests was sent to Wells Fargo, PSU’s health care provider, and is being reviewed. Kennedy said that ASPSU is planning another student health care forum to be held in the upcoming weeks.
Textbook affordability
Soto said that making textbooks more affordable is an issue he will be looking into in the coming months.
Last term, ASPSU ran a textbook alert campaign to let students know how they can affect the cost of textbooks. The focus was to alert students that by getting their professors to turn textbook requests in earlier to the PSU bookstore, the more that cheaper used textbooks would be available to purchase.
Ken Brown, president and CEO of the Portland State Bookstore, said getting textbook requests in earlier is the most likely solution to lowering the costs of textbooks for students.