Dotters-Katz To Liberate OSA-Run ASUO Intern Program
Since his election, ASUO President Sam Dotter-Katz has hardly been running away from his campaign promises of reform. If anything, one might even wonder where he’s going to find the time to enact the many reforms he has recently committed himself to in a lengthy letter to President Frohnmayer. But Dotter-Katz doesn’t seem to be worried, as his administration is kicking off the usually-sleepy summer term with a reform that didn’t even make his already-epic to-do list: eliminating the OSA Campus Coordinator position.
The OSA Campus Coordinator position is largely responsible for running the ASUO internship program, for which students pay some $30,000 in incidental fees annually. In return, the OSA has groomed past interns to treat the ASUO as little more than a lobbyist fundraising organization. Through the secretive “Fight Club” program, the OSA has organized and supported loyal candidates for ASUO office. Once elected, these students have consistently poured ASUO funds into OSA’s questionable lobbying efforts, and generally opposed greater accountability for student funds. But Dotters-Katz’s proposal is not simply about eliminating a $30k salaried position from the incidental fee. By training newcomers to the ASUO, the OSA-run intern program has contributed greatly to the ASUO’s culture of rampant, unaccountable spending. And with so many students disinterested in ASUO business, it’s important that those who do volunteer their time are not simply funneled into a lobbyist training program.
By creating an independent, GTF-run internship program (through the Holden Leadership Center), Dotters-Katz is proposing a much-needed step to move the ASUO away from its gravy-train mentality. Just as importantly, it will allow idealistic students to work for the change they happen to believe in without being forced into what activists themselves term the “non-profit-industrial complex.” Or fitting themselves into the OSA’s narrow ideological box. It’s impossible not to commend Dotters-Katz for this decision. It saves money, provides more and better leadership opportunities, and frees future generations of ASUO leaders from the OSA’s “money-first” dogma. It also shows that Dotters-Katz is serious about breaking open the culture of soft corruption that has grown around the ASUO money trough.
Coming from an executive that has already committed to demanding accountability from OSPIRG and reforming the overrealized fund, this move proves that real reform in the ASUO actually is possible. If things continue like this, the Dotters-Katz/Delashaw executive could be the most consequential ASUO administration in recent history. Stand by for the inevitable wailing, gnashing of teeth and accusations of racism in three, two, one…
