In the latest issue of the Oregon Commentator, Volume XXI, Issue IX & X, Ben Strawn’s answer to the question “Do you think it’s hypocritical of the ASUO to constantly complain about the rising cost of higher education while taking action that causes the already high incidental fee to rise?” (P 15) was not correct. Instead of Strawn’s answer, which will appear as an update to this post as soon as I return to the office, Adam Petkun’s answer was run a second time. This was the result of not nearly enough checking on the part of the OC editors after a long couple of days of layout. We regret the error, and apologize for any misrepresentation of Strawn’s position that might have occured as a result.

UPDATE: Strawn’s answer should have read as follows:

It certainly is contradictory for us to steadily increase our self imposed and maintained cost while simultaneously griping about the state imposed costs. There is always warranted growth within program budgets, but I think we have had problems in the past deciding how to go about allocating that money. The PFC bylaws should have much firmer guidelines as to how quickly line items can grow, and under what circumstances that should be recommended. But also, there is a certain dynamic at work that pushes the incidental fee higher. As the state continues to disinvest in higher education, the programs not directly linked to academics are the first to suffer. With the student fee we have a choice to let that happen or take on more of the cost ourselves. So far it seems like students have felt, on some level, that our physical and cultural development is worth supporting regardless of what the state is doing.

–The Company

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 15th, 2004 at 21:39 by Timothy and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.