Mount Hood

The Trans-Pacific-Partnership:

Artwork by Carly Fister
Artwork by Carly Fister
By Jerry Creasy president of the business and economics

You may be wondering why you should be concerned about some boring free trade agreement that few people know anything about, but I’m here to tell you that it plays a significant role in the future of the labor market that us college students will soon become a part of.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a relatively new free trade agreement being spearheaded by the U.S. and about a dozen other Pacific Rim countries, including Canada, Chile, Vietnam, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Brunei, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam.

The agreement on the U.S side is currently stalling in the Senate, as the vote to “fast-track” the legislation was struck down on Tuesday, which would have essentially allowed the agreement to be pushed through on a quicker agenda.

It is supposedly designed to ease the flow of goods and services in order to grow businesses and the economy, but since the legislative hearings of trade agreements occur in secret, it is difficult to tell what the text of the proposal actually says.

In order to really understand something like the TPP, we first need to understand what free trade is.

Free trade is designed to create open markets between countries. This means imported and exported goods and services should not be taxed or tariffed by countries engaging in trade with each other.

The opposite of free trade is fair trade, aptly named even though it doesn’t really create “fairness,” so to speak. The idea behind fair trade is to protect industries and services being produced within a country from being infringed upon by another country.

For example, when Hyundai, a Korean car company, exports a car to the U.S, the U.S. may impose a tariff, which is an import/export tax, so that it is closer to the price that American car manufactures can afford to charge customers in the U.S. However, this hurts the global economy because we are not focusing on something we could be competitive at. All we are doing is causing the price of cars to be higher than necessary.

The benefit to free trade is that it creates more competition between countries and can lead to specialization in the goods and services being produced. Specialization makes economies more efficient and wealthier in the long run. This is because countries are then able to focus more on a few products and services and, therefore, produce them better than one country would if it tried to make everything it wanted or needed all on its own.

If you as an individual tried to grow your own food, brew your own beer, make your own clothes and design your own computer, you would not be very well off because you don’t have the time or resources to do all of those things well.

However, if I only made clothes and you only grew food then I could trade my clothes for your food and we would both be better off. That is why when individuals, or countries in this case, trade with each other they focus on a few things and then trade those with another country for something else.

For instance, the U.S focuses on pharmaceutical drugs while China focuses on the manufacturing of consumer products such as children’s toys. This is incentive for free trade. It makes it easier for countries to trade their specialized products with those of other countries.

This is in part why the TPP is being pushed through and why many other free trade agreements in the past, such as the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement were passed. However, it may not be the only reason that this deal has been drafted.

Unfortunately, little is known about the TPP by the general public. The trade agreement has been in the developmental stages since its drafting date all the way back in 2005, and the process to put this trade act together has been all but transparent. Much of it has taken place behind closed doors with both the public and even Congress to some extent held in the dark.

Initially, four countries signed the agreement and then the others came on to negotiate while others were still in the prospective stages. In the last five years or so, negotiations have been slowly rolling along with many of the decisions occurring in secret. However, WikiLeaks has been successful in obtaining some information on the deal, but it pales in
comparison to how much we don’t know.

In more ways than one, the TPP may be particularly damaging to some industries and demographic groups in the U.S.

Back in the early 1990s, the passing of NAFTA reportedly resulted in the “relocation of some 700,000 jobs, 61% in manufacturing,” according to an article by Jana Kasperkevic of The Guardian.

However, if you buy the free trade argument on the whole, the economies of those engaged in free trade will improve even though it will result in the shifting and changing of some industries. This kind of outsourcing of manufacturing jobs is notorious for being one of the main causes of the decline of the American dream, on which a person is able to rely on the abundance of a high-paying job in the U.S. It is also seen as one of the reasons that wages have stayed stagnant in this country for so long. A loss of decent full time jobs is painfully felt by American workers, resulting in resentment of free trade agreements and the government officials who support them.

The passing of this act could be very beneficial to U.S corporations with stake holdings in any of the countries involved. According to WikiLeaks, many parts of the TPP will result in a significant amount of increased freedom for transcontinental businesses, such as Nike. In fact, Nike is one of the main supporters and happened to be where President Obama decided to speak to the public on how great TPP would be for everyone involved.

The President claimed it will help improve working conditions overseas while simultaneously creating a stronger workforce here at home. It is curious, however, that President Obama chose Nike headquarters as his platform for his speech, as has been one of the companies most notoriously known for sub-par working conditions in its manufacturing plants overseas where it outsourced a number of jobs.

It is difficult to say whether or not this agreement would actually be worth it for the global economy or, more importantly for American college students, whether or not it would stand to benefit the U.S. job market.

Another key component of this deal is that one of the largest Pacific Rim countries is being intentionally left out of the deal.
You guessed it: China.

The deal is somewhat aimed at countering China’s influence amongst the Pacific Rim, since the country is infamous for manipulating its currency so that it is worth less than others and thereby incentivizes businesses to buy products made there rather than from North America or Western Europe.

Another issue is that many of the corporations resemble oligopolies to an extent with major shares of the markets that they compete in. This means they have very few competitors and thus have a huge effect on the market. This could give them significant power and influence over the details of this agreement so that it benefits them.

With an increasingly competitive labor supply, it may become harder for graduating college students to find work. Some jobs will be shipped overseas not only in the manufacturing sector, but other areas as well. Others will have wages forced down as competition from foreign countries becomes fiercer. Additionally, when large companies have such a large impact on the economy, wages could decrease, along with employment.

We will just have to wait and see how this pact plays out, but for now it’s up in the air.

Sleeplessly coming of age

By Haunani Tomas, Editor-in-Chief
In attempting to complete a 10-page group paper the night before it was due, I ask myself the question any student asks themselves at three o’clock in the morning: how did I even get here?

Umpteen cups of Folgers medium roast later, I look out of my kitchen window: the beams signifying a new day, as well as the hourly approach of my deadline, shone down on the red doors of the Whitesell Townhouses as my eyes adjust to something other than my computer screen.

So after staying up for upwards of 36 consecutive hours to complete this report worth 60 percent of our final grade, our professor emails us to inform us of two things: first, to cancel class and second, to move the due date of our 10-pager to next week.

After making another cup of coffee, I slouch back down in front of my laptop screen, defeated and exhausted. My phone begins ringing. Mom.

“Hey, baby girl! Did I wake you up?” she asks. She greets me between sips of her first coffee of the morning. Maxwell House.

“Yeah, something like that,” I say as I close my laptop screen and rub my eyes. and curl up on the couch.

As the capstone course to complete an undergraduate business degree, students are required to enroll in strategic management. Among completing various case studies and reading Harvard Business Review articles, we are assigned a group project consisting of four separate 8-10 page papers that analyze a publicly-owned business of our choosing.

Aside from being a royal pain in my you-know-what, group papers and projects test one’s ability to collaborate with peers to work toward one goal: submitting something that doesn’t look or sound like it was done during the wee hours of the morning, around the same time as your roommates and their boyfriends are stumbling on home from the bar.

This strategic management group project is one of three groups I am involved in this term, courtesy of the remaining upper-division level classes required to graduate. So, in attempting to, for lack of a better phrase, get it over with, I parked my rear-end on our kitchen counter around nine in the evening and proceeded to analyze in great detail the generic strategy of Cabela’s and yield in-depth coverage on potential strategic options Cabela’s could pursue in their endeavor to substantiate themselves as the World’s Foremost Outfitter. Fun stuff really.

At this point in the school year, a squirrel has what seems like an endless attention span compared to mental capacity I have going on upstairs. There exists no limit to the things that hinder my ability to focus on anything academic.

The limit does not exist!

Anyway, 10 pages of single-spaced Cabela’s strategic implications later and, oh! Good morning sunshine! Literally!

Staying coherent enough to see the light of a new day is something I giddily partook in during the ages of 10 through 14. The last time I remember staying up for the entirety of the Earth’s 360-degree rotation was way back in what seems like Nam.

In my Gatsby-esque “younger and more vulnerable years,” if you will, I rejoiced in disobeying my mother’s orders to go to sleep at the reasonable hour of ten o’clock. Particularly during slumber parties, my friends and I prided ourselves in withstanding the allure of a good night’s rest. If you were anything like a normal adolescent en route to puberty, you understand.

It was implicitly understood that whoever fell asleep first would most likely end up with Sharpie tattoos, which would be drawn on bodily parts unforeseen by one’s own eye and would read something similar to “owned” or “[insert name] was here.”

Regardless of how I remember all-nighters as a child, they do not presently merit the same amusing recollections. There is no sound rationale I can think up that would gladly incline me forego an eight-hour REM cycle.

Similar to running around on the playground, summoning the energy to stay awake all night does not come as easily as it once did, nor does it occur because of the reasons it once did.
So, I concluded that my all-nighters can be attributed to a lack of proper time management.

It’s difficult to believe my mother when she tried to convince me that these days are the best of my life when I wish she would pester me to get a great night’s rest far before midnight.

LETTER TO EDITOR

I understand your perspective in your May 8 column [“Fighting hate with hate is NOT the answer”]. The Sweet Cakes by Melissa owners intentionally broke the law and discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation. It was their decision to do so and they stand by their decision. They didn’t say, “Whoops. Didn’t know that was against the law. Our bad.”

You mention that there are two sides to every story — that suggests that the lesbian couple who had been patrons of the cake shop were in the wrong to ask their local baker to make their cake, as they had done for other occasions. But the law is clear. The bakers did discriminate based on sexual orientation—a violation under Oregon statute. Would we say it’s “two sides to every story” if the bakers wouldn’t make a cake for African-American people?

There are consequences to homophobia. We do need to send a message that bigotry is not a practice endorsed in Oregon commerce. How else would you sanction a business for an egregious and intentional violation of the law?

Homophobia needs to remain separate from business practice if business owners intend to set up shop in Oregon. Sweet Cakes by Melissa chose to act on theirs and being outed about their homophobic beliefs and prejudice was what cost them their business. (You should also see this, if you haven’t:http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-20698-the_cake_wars.html)

Lastly, I agree with you, there is no excuse to belittle someone because they have a different belief system or lifestyle. People who are gay, lesbian, bi, or queer don’t have a lifestyle, they just have a different sexual orientation and in Oregon that is a protected class.

Best,
CM Hall
Project Coordinator, Western Region Interpreter Education Center
Adjunct Faculty, ASL/English Interpreting Program

Lu’au

By Jenna Beresheim
Staff Writer

Western students will have a chance to break away from the drab Oregon weather, entering a cultural snapshot of Polynesia and beyond at the Hawai’i Club’s ninth annual Lu’au, Saturday, May 16.

The event spans over five hours, with doors opening at 4:30 p.m., dinner beginning by 5:30 p.m., and rounding out the evening with a reggae concert by Steadyriots at 9 p.m. The main attraction, the dance show, will take place between these two events, starting at 6:30 p.m.

“There will be Tahitian dancing, Samoan dancing, Maori dancing, and Hula dancing,” said Hawai’i club president, Kamaluhiaakauanani Kauahi-Daniels, a second year communications major. “It will be filled with lots of fun, and you can experience a whole lot of different cultures of the Pacific.”

If none of these dances are familiar to you, or you have never experienced the culinary culture of Polynesia, this event may be for you. Do not be fooled that this event will only focus around Hawaiian culture — the variety of dances show that many cultures will be exhibited in this fun-filled night.

“We put on the Lu’au so we can show and teach the world of the many Polynesian cultures that run through our islands,” said Alyssa Carvalho, a senior business major and vice president of the Hawai’i club. “The dances we dance have meaning and history behind it. It’s the stories of our ancestors and islands. It’s not all about grass skirts, palm trees and bright colors.”

Students should also expect to engage in games, a photo booth, and even a bake sale outside of the main show. These events will be going on during the breaks before dinner and in between the dance presentation.

“For this year, we hope to reach out to others and teach them of our cultures and get them wanting to come back to our future Lu’aus,” Carvalho said.

Tickets are still available for pre-sale through Friday, and start at $5 for students and $15 for non-students. At the door on Saturday, they will raise by $2 each. Kauahi-Daniels heavily encourages students to attend “to learn more about the Polynesian culture. There will be lots to do there!”

If you are interested and wish to purchase your tickets, contact the Hawaii Club at hawaiiclub@wou.edu.

Incoming first-year students see tuition rates rise

By Jack Armstrong
 News Editor

Western is expected to experience another rise in tuition for the incoming students of the 2015-2016 academic year, beginning Fall term 2015.

According to the faculty senate minutes, incoming first-year students can expect to see a rise of around 2 percent for the total cost of tuition for the typical school year.

This increase would see entering students with Oregon residency paying $1,976 in tuition and fees for a 12-credit, full time enrollment.

Currently enrolled students with the WOU Promise program will not experience a rise in tuition, and will continue to pay their existing level of tuition.

This increase, while not insignificant, it is about half of what other students at many other universities in Oregon can expect to see.

“Tuition increases are the lowest at WOU out of all the Oregon public four year institutions,”
Western president Mark Weiss said. “2 percent for next year compared to an average of 5 percent for others.”

Part of the lower than expected tuition increase comes from a higher than expected amount of funding granted by the Higher Education Coordinating Commission.

According to their website, the HECC is a 14 member volunteer board who is responsible for “advising the Legislature, the Governor, and the Oregon Education Investment Board on higher education policy.”

“There are two pieces of information used by the HECC in making funding decisions,” Eric Yahnke, Western’s vice president of finance and administration, said. “The first factor is enrollment level and student credit load while enrolled, and the second is a the graduation rate of students with a degree.”

“We expect that Western will receive a higher amount of state funding under the new outcomes-based formula based on information provided by the HECC,” Weiss said. The increase in funding is said to be around 20 percent compared to previous years.

Western’s administration has also been working as a unit to reduce the costs across the university in an attempt to curtail rapidly rising tuition costs. President Weiss made it a focus of his time at Western.

“It is imperative that we lower the relative cost of attending a university for Oregonians,” Weiss said. “I believe that affordability and student debt load are among the highest priorities that we must address in providing a college degree.

Students also play a vital role in keeping costs down. Western students are particularly active in voicing their opinion at the legislative sessions in Salem.

“I believe that Western Oregon students are the most active in the legislature when the tuition rates are up for debate,” Yahnke said. “During the most recent presentation to the Oregon State Board of Higher Education, we had by far the most students in attendance representing their cause.”

This task is certainly easier said than done. Oregon has seen a decade of steady divestment in higher education, which coupled with a rapidly rising enrollment rate contributed to an overall increase in tuition costs for incoming students.

Slightly lower enrollment can also have a temporary effect on Western’s tuition prices. According to the faculty senate, “enrollment has declined this year about 4 percent overall.”
“Enrollment can have an effect on fixed costs and the current services offered by the university,” Yahnke said.

“Higher enrollment keeps current faculty engaged, and we have an administrative staff that is set up to deal with a certain number of full time students,” he added.

This dip in enrollment is expected to reverse moving into the 2015 academic year with “a potential 10 percent rise in enrollment with the 2015 entering class.”

Western’s new independent university board could also have an effect on future rates of tuition.

With the Oregon University System no longer retaining voting control over Western’s budgetary future, the costs facing the entering class of 2016 will be decided by the new board and incoming president Rex Fuller.

“The WOU institutional board will approve or modify the administration’s recommendation,” Weiss said. Western students are also asked to participate in the discussion when it is possible.

“A student tuition fee committee is apprised of the university budget and is offered the opportunity to voice their opinion on the recommendation,” Weiss said.

Looking at a smaller increase than usual has left Weiss feeling like Western’s efforts to provide the best education at the lowest price possible has been a success.

“Our students get a top notch education from faculty and staff dedicated to their success,” said Weiss.

Even at a lower price than expected, higher education does come with its pitfalls.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the national average of debt for students upon graduation with an undergraduate degree hovers around $29,856. This is the highest it has ever been, even accounting for the effects of inflation.

“I encourage all students to receive the necessary advising assistance to graduate in a timely manner and avoid the cost of extra years to degree completion,” Weiss said.

He added: “Lastly, I encourage students to take responsibility for themselves to appropriately manage their debt load, and make certain they graduate with a degree to launch their futures.”

Kellen Hendrickson recognized for Staff Excellence

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By Jenna Beresheim
Staff Writer

Kellen Hendrickson, a Trades Maintenance Worker 2 on campus, has been announced as the winner of the 2015 Pastega Award for Staff Excellence.

According to the Western Pastega Award homepage, the Award for Staff Excellence “recognizes classified or administrative staff members who demonstrate exceptional service to the university.”

Similar to the Pastega awards for Excellence in Scholarship and Excellence in Teaching, the Staff Excellence award winner also receives a $1,000 honorarium.

A trades maintenance worker is hired through the physical plant on campus. Work orders are sent in through the Portal, allowing both students and staff to notify workers of issues around Western — specifically the dorms and Valsetz.

“I work exclusively on the housing side of campus doing repairs of any kind,” Hendrickson said, explaining the physical plant’s type of work. “An example of a typical day includes repairing lighting fixtures, heaters, furniture, plumbing, and I also do patching and painting work.”

Hendrickson is a Tillamook, Oregon native and began attending Western as a student in fall 2001.

By Spring Break 2003, he had begun working for the paint crew at the Physical Plant, and said he found the flexible schedule and understanding staff a blessing for a student with an ever-changing schedule.

Hendrickson graduated from Western with a social science degree in history, remaining on campus to extend his time at the physical plant.

“After I graduated, I was asked to continue working as a temporary full-time employee,” said Hendrickson. He was given the opportunity to attend electrical school for two years, moving up in rank at work from TMW1 to TMW2.

“I never thought about working here after college, but Western has given me so much,” he said. “I’ve been able to meet and work with some amazing people here.”

After spending years working at Western since graduating from the university, Hendrickson said he finds joy in his work every day.

Outside of work, two children keep him busy for the time being. Once they are older, Hendrickson would like to become more involved with campus activities outside of work.

Working amongst exceptional mentors as well as a previous Pastega Award recipient, Hendrickson was honored to receive such recognition for the work done for the campus community.

“This award tells you that the campus community has noticed your hard work and wants you to know it’s appreciated,” Hendrickson said. “I don’t come to work every day hoping for an award. I come here because I enjoy what I do and who I work with.

“My hope is that each one of the students here finds something that makes them happy,” Hendrickson added. “For me, just helping out the students and the staff makes me happy. Ensuring that their day goes better is the only award I need.”

WOU.edu to move to a more mobile friendly platform

By Sydney Joa
Freelancer

Western will be unveiling a new design for its website, with the official update day set for May 15.

Many of the changes are cosmetic, including a shift from a red banner to a black one. The new website, which is set to be complete by the 2015 fall term, has also made deeper changes to the basic functionality of the site itself.

Screenshot of new website (1)3

While the official roll out date for this update is later this month, the project will continue development over the summer so as to not affect the students’ and faculty’s ability to access the
Western website during heavy traffic times like finals.

Students and faculty will still be able to freely access both the Western homepage and the WOU Portal sites while the changes are being made.

With the complete website slated to be finalized by fall term, those who visit the site during summer term will see each page changing almost daily.

The decision to make these changes mainly has to do with mobile access; the current website lacks true mobile friendliness.

The web provider utilized for the WOU website has started to list and rank web users by whether the website is mobile friendly and in order to elicit a better ranking for wou.edu, the mobile friendly switch was necessary.

Aside from the company push to update the site, looks and general updated design were other catalyzing factors.

“This new design will be generally more user friendly and definitely more cohesive,” said Danielle Gauntz, the lead website designer for Western.

Each department’s page is getting an updated look alongside with the university’s home page.

Newly designed pages for the departments will feature a series of new, easy access majors and programs tab to better locate general information. Each one will also feature a specially designed look to go with the department.

The use of more visible, easy access links and tabs will make getting around the new and improved sites much easier and browsing time more efficient.

Although each department page is getting plenty of individual attention, a large portion of the attention is also being focused on making each page more accessible from one another.
Or, as Gauntz puts it: “The geography of the site will be much easier to navigate.”

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