Mount Hood

What students need to know about current Oregon legislation

Oregon legislators working on passing new legislation that benefits college students

Chris Smith | Freelance write

In every even numbered year, the Oregon State Legislator has a long legislative session.

There are nine bills that directly affect Oregon students ⏤ four of which, if implemented, would bring significant change to Oregon college campuses. These are House Bills 2835, 2919, 2542 and 3012.

(HB 2835) Basic Needs Navigators

Finding aid for basic needs such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program and others is difficult for anyone. HB 2835 seeks $4–4.5 million for a new staff member at all 17 Oregon community colleges and seven university campuses for both years of the fiscal biennium that is specially trained to assist students navigating these federal aid programs. The staff member will connect and inform students on benefit programs that will increase their academic completion and reduce the hardship of food insecurity.

(HB 2919) Textbook On-Time Adoption

This will require faculty to make textbook information ⏤ including price ⏤ available to students at the time of course registration. This legislation will allow for students to get an idea for the complete cost of a course, thus financially plan better, and incentivize faculty to adopt no to low cost materials to help combat rising textbook prices.

(HB 2542) Mandatory Fees Transparency

Currently, students are billed fees without an explanation for where their money actually goes.

Under the proposed bill, public universities and community colleges are required to prominently display mandatory fees, defining every fee, noting fee expenses, where the money will go and the beginning and end dates of said fee. Additionally, public universities would have to provide the Higher Education Coordinating Commission (HECC) a report detailing their compliance with the requirement.

(HB 3012) Student Incidental Fee

The current Incidental Fee Committee statute ⏤ ORS 352.105 ⏤  is vague in its current language. Under this proposed bill student government and administrative roles would be clarified.

As of now, only HB 2835 has had a public hearing but, along with the rest of the bills, is currently in the Oregon House Committee on Education. If approved, all bills except for HB 2835 will go to the house floor for amendments, a floor vote and then sent to the Senate for the same process.

If approved by the required majority vote, the bills will go to the governor’s office to become laws upon her signature.

Contact the author at aswousenate@mail.wou.edu

IFC concludes spring term discussions and moves on to the next school year

The IFC has finalized spring term and are working on next year’s budget

Sydney Carpenter | News Editor

Western’s Incidental Fee Committee has completed their process for establishing fee and budgetary allocations for spring 2021.

During their Feb. 5 meeting, seven IFC members voted to approve the motion of allocating all budgetary requests from all 15 funded areas while one member abstained. For the money allocation, the committee supplied three areas with additional funding: Student Media received $2,750; the Creative Arts department, $1,500; ASWOU, $81.

For spring term, the committee opted to lower the $150 fee students saw on their bill this term due to lower budgetary requests, according to IFC chair Makana Waikiki. From the meeting transcript, it was revealed by IFC member Quentin Kanta that only one student voted on the fee preference option and voted for a $125 fee to be charged on student billing next term.

The operating costs for spring term total $585,886.67. Under the current proposed fee, the IFC anticipates collecting $502,750 and supplying the remaining funding using money from their $800,000 worth of reserves. The difference between winter and spring term’s operating budgets is approximately $330,000 less. The difference is due to the athletics department not making any budgetary requests for spring due to sufficient funding from their winter term requests.

The IFC is also working on drafting budgetary allocations and fee proposals for the 2021-2022 academic year. All funded areas have been asked to pitch 10%, 20% and 30% cuts. The reason for this request is due to the uncertainty of enrollment for the upcoming year and the unpredictability of COVID-19.

At this time, only 11 of the 15 areas have proposed their budgets for the upcoming school year. All areas were supposed to finish their proposals on Feb. 12, but the IFC chair cancelled the meeting because of the ice storm, and anticipate resuming proposals on Feb. 19.

For students that are interested in the IFC’s process, the committee holds their meetings via Zoom every Friday starting at 9 a.m. All committee meetings are open to the public and the link to the meeting can be found at their website wou.edu/ifc/. For all other inquiries regarding the IFC, students can email the IFC chair at ifcchair@mail.wou.edu.

Contact the author at scarpenter18@mail.wou.edu

Press Release: Satisfactory Senate Resolution

ASWOU and WOU Faculty Senate approve the Satisfactory/No Credit grading option

Liz Marquez Gutierrez | ASWOU Senate President

WOU students: 

On behalf of the ASWOU Senate I am excited to share that the E-Satisfactory/NoCredit* grading option will be offered for Winter and Spring of 2021. The S*/NC grading option was offered last spring term to support students adjust to learning in a remote format due to the COVID-19 crisis, however, it was not a grading option for fall 2020 although ~95% of courses were offered online. 

As fall term began, we remained concerned about the mental health and well-being of students, understanding that learning in a remote format during a pandemic continues to be a challenge. In order to address this issue, the ASWOU Senate passed Senate Resolution 6.21 requesting WOU Faculty continue offering students the S*/NC grading option for the remainder of the 2020-2021 academic year. Additionally, Elizabeth Braatz who is a phenomenal student advocate, created a survey to collect student support for the S*/NC grading option to demonstrate how this grading option would greatly benefit students this academic year.

Thankfully, the WOU Faculty Senate voted to approve the S*/NC grading policy for the rest of the 2020-2021 academic year. This effort would not be possible without the support of students who filled out and shared the survey with their peers. I would like to thank Elizabeth Braatz for her incredible work in creating a survey to collect student support for this grading option and for presenting the survey results to the WOU Faculty Senate. I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to the WOU Faculty Senate for listening to students’ concerns and for their support of Senate Resolution 6.21.

On December 29th, 2020, the University Registrar sent an email to students providing more details about the S*/NC grading option. It is highly encouraged that students work with their academic advisor when deciding between S*/NC and A-F grading options for winter term as it may impact financial aid status or admittance to future programs (e.g. nursing school, law school).

We hope this grading option provides students the opportunity to successfully complete their courses as we continue to adjust to a new learning environment.

For more information, contact ASWOU Senate President Liz Marquez Gutierrez at aswousenpres@mail.wou.edu.

Approved IFC fee application makes historic changes for student run committees

ASWOU and WOU administration debate over IFC fee application leads to new Oregon Legislation proposals 

Sydney Carpenter | News Editor

The Associated Students of Western Oregon University and Western administration have concluded their debate over fee application for winter term. 

As a result of the actions of administration, ASWOU is working with Oregon legislators to improve the current Oregon statue that is supposed to protect and guarantee student autonomy over incidental fees.

“Much of the problem is that the law as written now provides the opportunity for an institution to ‘pocket veto’ the student fee through inaction and enough delays,” said Oregon Student Association Executive Director Andrew Rogers in an article written by Oregon Public Broadcasting. 

During the discussions fee revision, ASWOU President NJ Johnson reports delayed action and staling of IFC processes by President Rex Fuller.

“We had sent the fee request on Nov. 25,” said Johnson, “ We needed … for him to respond to the fee request by Dec. 9.”

At the time President Fuller was sent the request, he had no authority to approve the fee in its entirety. However, in an emergency Board of Trustees meeting held on Dec. 8, the committee gave Fuller temporary permission to approve the IFC fee. According to President Johnson, President Fuller was asked to approve the fee by 1 p.m. on Dec. 9, and reports receiving a response around 12:34 p.m that day. Instead of approving the fee Fuller questioned aspects of the proposal.

“He had two weeks to ask questions,” said Johnson, “All of the questions asked were just meant to stall our process so that a potential HECC appeal would have been nullified. We’d be in a position where we have to accept the university’s offer for another stimulus. A stimulus that wouldn’t be able to sufficiently fund the programs that we needed to.”

At that time, ASWOU was in the process of filing a second appeal to the Higher Education Coordinating Commission to have a third party evaluate the administration’s rejection of the IFC fee. 

The first appeal was written in September after the IFC was denied consultation with the Board of Trustees to discuss formatting their fee so that it reflected a campus attending classes 95% online. The appeal was ultimately withdrawn by ASWOU after Fuller stated that the IFC would receive a negotiated million dollar deal on the condition they withdraw their appeal to HECC. ASWOU filed their second appeal later that afternoon on Dec. 9, after their discussion with Fuller.

Following the HECC appeal, Johnson received an email from Fuller saying he would charge the IFC fee.

“For the IFC it seemed that we appealed and there was an attempt to stall us, but we didn’t let it stall us,”  said junior communications major and IFC chair Makana Waikiki. “The president then realized that we were very serious and prepared to move along with the HECC appeal.”

Waikiki explained that it appeared the administration didn’t want ASWOU to make the HECC appeal, so they agreed to charging the IFC fee. Never in Western’s IFC history has a fee established for the year been changed in the middle of that fiscal year. Although a monumental moment for student autonomy, Johnson expressed how disappointed he was that the fee was only accepted after legal action was taken.

“It’s a disappointment that so much effort and time has to go into retaining our rights as students,” said Johnson.

For the upcoming term, regardless of modality and amount of credits being taken, all students will see an flat rate IFC fee of $150 on their bill in comparison to their previous two tier fee system approved back in Apr. 2020. This fee charged students over $200 depending on course load.

In a press release issued on Dec. 16, ASWOU calls for students to participate in the new legislative process taking place within Oregon law. To be involved in the statewide student effort to pass legislation which regulates student fees, contact Oregon Student Association at andrew@orstudents.org to learn how to advocate for student voices.

Contact the author at scarpenter18@mail.wou.edu

Midterm letter from the Editor

A midterm look at the changes the Howl has made since issue one

Cora McClain | Editor-In-Chief

Well Western, we’ve made it halfway through the term and now stand on the precipice of a monumental election. As a way to manage my staff, I conduct what we call “midterm reviews,” where I sit down with each member of staff and talk about their progress so far, things that have changed and need to change. Think of this letter as a midterm review for The Western Howl, to you, our most valued readers.

More than most years, beginning this term and finding a routine has been difficult. Here at the Howl in particular, we have made some changes from what I had laid out for you in “The Western Howl: Vol. 3 Issue 1.”

Rather than reduce our content through only designing bi-weekly, the Howl staff have adjusted to continue designing each issue through the year. We are very happy with this, as we can continue to bring to Western the feeling of a produced, printed paper in an online format. 

These designed weekly issues can be seen on the right side-bar of the main page of our website and like always, the stories will still be uploaded online on the website.

With administration announcing that winter term will have similar modality to fall, the Howl will be distributing just as it has this term — we once again will not be printing. 

While IFC is still in deliberation and has not yet made their preliminary decisions, it is looking like our operating budget will not change much from fall. We will most likely be operating at the same capacity as we are now. This means we will only have the News, Entertainment and Lifestyle editor sections. Along with those, we will unfortunately not be able to meet one of our goals to expand to a 12 page paper by 2021, and continue to produce an 8 page paper into the new year. While I wish we could give you more content, Western, I hope that our current reporting is up to your standards.

Thank you, Western, for your continued support through these difficult weeks. Being able to serve this community and keep everyone informed makes all of this difficulty worth it. The Howl staff and I, appreciate you, Western; without you, our work would be meaningless. 

Once again, thank you Western, for making us at the Howl feel like we aren’t alone.

Contact the author at howleditor@wou.edu

Press Release: WOU Employees Reject President Rex Fuller

The staff and faculty of WOU press release on the vote of “no confidence” against President Rex Fuller

Dr. Scott Beaver | WOUFT Communications Officer

On Oct. 28, WOU faculty and staff unions initiated a vote of “no confidence” in President Rex Fuller in response to concerns raised by employees across the campus. Fuller recently implemented layoffs and announced plans for program elimination, after several years of declining enrollment and eroding shared governance under his leadership. More than 85% of the 240 respondents stated that they had no confidence in President Fuller’s leadership. The no confidence ballots also included a question asking respondents whether a survey regarding possible censure of other members of the upper administration should be conducted. The unions (WOUFT and SEIU Sub-local 082) cited failures of leadership, persistent management problems, and damage to the campus climate as primary reasons for conducting the no confidence and censure vote. The censure question indicated that 91% of the 240 faculty and classified staff wished to conduct a survey of possible censure for one or more members of President Fuller’s administration. This is the first time in institutional memory that a vote of no confidence has been conducted at WOU. Employees expressed their desire for the WOU Board of Trustees to take seriously their concerns about WOU’s leadership team and to take decisive action to correct the problems identified with the university’s upper administration. 

For more information, contact Dr. Scott Beaver, WOUFT Communications Officer by email at scottforrestbeaver@gmail.com or by phone at (503) 871-5444

All departments on campus experience employment reductions

Reductions to student and faculty employment have occurred all over campus

Sydney Carpenter | News Editor

Last April, Oregon’s unemployment numbers skyrocketed from 4% to 14.7% and has since settled to 7.9% as of September, according to deptofnumbers.com

Western has also experienced a spike in unemployment; all departments at Western have had jobs permanently removed, and each funded area has been temporarily limited to the amount of students they are able to hire.

In January 2020, Western’s Board of Trustees discussed potentially removing faculty jobs from campus due to steady decline in revenue.

“It was exacerbated by COVID-19,” said Public Service Librarian Janeanne Rockwell-Kincanon.

Many departments on campus — such as Student Recreation, the Child Development Center and the Hamersly Library — have all experienced employment reductions, totaling approximately 68 unfilled positions with a majority coming from Campus Recreation.

“It’s nowhere near where we would like it to be,” said Assistant Director of Campus Recreation Andy Main, “but one thing I think is important that we’re proud of is that just about every single employee that we were hoping to bring back for this fall we’ve gotten them their hours back or are trying get them back.”

Additionally, due to budget cuts and limited employment for social distancing purposes, the Hamersly Library and Student Recreation have cut their operating hours by more than 66%, while the Child Development Center has reduced the amount of child intake by 50%.

 

“Because we are operating under an emergency child care license, it requires us to have small stable groups,” said director Tammy Gardner. “We are doing three groups of 10 students. Each group has an assigned teacher and the groups are not allowed to cross paths.”

Currently, the Child Development Center is also receiving partial funding from an Oregon grant called Preschool Promise, Gardner explained. Under the Preschool Promise, it fully pays for 18 students to attend. Qualifying students have to be under 200% of the Federal poverty level and the families who submitted applications were selected by a third party source called the Parenting Hub of Polk and Marion County.

All departments on campus are hopeful that the coming year will provide better funding and increase employment opportunities. The story will be updated as more information is provided. 

Correction: In the story above, it was implied that reduced student hires was the cause of limited hours of operation at Hamersly Library. However, this is not the case; student hire reduction was not the cause of limited hours, but the safety of staff and faculty due to social distancing guidelines.

Contact the author at howlnews@mail.wou.edu

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