ASOSU to host open town hall Tuesday

On Tuesday, Jan. 31 at 8 p.m., the Associated Students of Oregon State University will host an open town hall with the goal of gathering student opinions on how to better represent the students of Oregon State.

The town hall was prompted by SB-71.01, a bill introduced last term designed to increase student representation in Congress. The bill would have given automatic seats in the ASOSU Senate to representatives from several on-campus organizations, effectively doubling the number of senators.

The bill was referred to the Senate's student government committee for review, where it was killed.

"There were too many problems with (the bill)," said Senator Crystal Boyd, town hall organizer. "It had no democratic process at all. The seats didn't have to be elected…it was just giving free seats to interest groups."

In addition, said Boyd, the process as described in the bill of giving seats to organizations was vague and lacked important detail. Thus, the committee decided to discard the bill and attempt to rewrite it.

Representatives from the student organizations mentioned in the bill were invited to discuss the rewrite with members from ASOSU, but a consensus could not be reached.

"A lot of people were struggling between wanting more representation and wanting a democratic process," Boyd said. "We were hitting our heads together because people wanted different things…so we resolved at the end of last term to host a town hall so everybody could come together and share their ideas, and we can work from there."

To help facilitate the discussion at the town hall, ASOSU will bring in Team Liberation, a student-led human relations facilitator group.

The group's mission, according to its website, is "to provide safe spaces for respectful communication related to issues surrounding social justice including race, gender, sexual orientation, class, religion, age and ability."

Third-party facilitation, said Boyd, will help to ensure that all participants feel that their opinions are being heard and respected.

The goal of the town hall, Boyd added, is to bring in students from diverse backgrounds to share their ideas, "so that we can really get the full breadth of what everyone thinks is a good idea."

If any of the ideas presented are drafted into a constitutional amendment, the student population will have to vote on it. This will require at least 15 percent of OSU students to vote, which is a difficult task. For that reason, ASOSU is even more motivated to find a solution that the majority of the student body will support.

"It's going to take a lot of compromising, and a lot of talking," Boyd said. "But I'm hoping we'll figure out something that will be agreeable to everybody."

The event will begin at 8 p.m. in the Memorial Union, room 109.

Kristin Pugmire, senior reporter

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