Students for OSPIRG at the University of Oregon

Hello!  And Welcome to the DuckPIRG page! 

We are so proud to be ducks. We are so so excited that so many students voted and that so many students agree that together, we can stop global warming, make healthcare more affordable, make textbooks cheaper, and end consumer rip-offs. Thank you to all UofO students for voting this week and making your voice heard in this election! 

This term there are a lot of exciting things going on at the University of Oregon with OSPIRG!

WEEKLY CORE Meetings are every Tuesday from 5-6pm in the EMU Survival Center!  Come check it out.

Weekly Intern Class - Thursday 1pm-2pm in the EMU Survival Center

Campaigns we're working on this term:

New Voter's Project - make sure politicians pay attention to us by participating in the Oregon Governor Primary Elections (Republican and Democrat) on May 18th.  We're working with the Student Vote Coalition to make sure student voices are heard. 

Global Warming Solutions - elected officials need to do more to address the growing climate crisis by implementing renewable energy solutions like wind and solar.  Join us during Earth Week when we will be working with the Student Sustainability Coalition to educate campus about what we can do RIGHT NOW! April 19th - 23rd

Hunger and Homelessness - the economic downturn has left countless of Americans homeless and without a way to provide for their family.  Join us for the 25th annual, national Hunger Clean Up to provide for those in need in the Eugene community. May 8th.

THANKS FOR WANTING TO GET INVOLVED!  If any of these projects sound interesting to you, have a problem in the world you'd like to address, or just believe in student power, fill out the interest form.

Winter Term Campaigns:

Corporations Are People Too!

As frustrated as we are with the Supreme Court's Decision to classify corporations as people to allow them to spend limitless amounts of money on political campaigns?  (Citizen's United v. Federal Election Commission) You've come to the right place.

With the 2010 elections coming right up, we are showing how ridiculous we think this decision is and asking our elected officials to do something before the floodgates of corporate money alter the political landscape forever!  This term we held Mock Weddings, between people and their favorite corporations to show our elected officials how ridiculous it is that corporations be considered people.  Check out the photos here!

Or, go here for more info:

http://www.ospirg.org/newsroom/money-politics/money--politics-news4/citizens-united-solution-unveiled-rapid-fire-reform-required

New Voters Project

No matter what the issue, what the election, politicians need to pay attention to young people. 

So this term, we're again joining forces with the Oregon Student Association (OSA), Building Votes, and our individual student government associations to form the Oregon Student Vote Coalition.  Just this year, for a random special election, we helped register thousands of students to vote and make thousands of Get Out The Vote contacts for record turnout here in Lane County.

Read more about the Campaign here: http://www.ospirgstudents.org/new-voters-project

21^st Century Transportation

From high speed rail to mass transit, it’s time for us to get on the right track.  Americans all want a safe, clean transportation system that lets us all get where we need to go – but our current system just isn’t working.  Our reliance on cars and planes to get from point A to point B means our transportation system increases our dependence on oil.  Our tailpipe emissions account for a third of the nation’s global warming emissions, pollute the air we breathe and make people sick.

The Obama Administration's commitment of $8 Billion across the country for High Speed Rail projects is a great start, but there is about $50 Billion in shovel-ready projects just waiting for state and local officials to get us on the right track!

Read more about the campaign here: http://www.ospirgstudents.org/transit

Making Textbooks affordable

Students spend an average of $900 a year on textbooks, which is 20% of tuition at an average university and half of tuition at a community college! And the prices keep going up.

We are working with faculty at the UO to promote open textbooks. Open textbooks (free, online textbooks) are really catching on, thanks in part to our campaign to shine the spotlight on these great alternatives. Over 2,000 faculty members have signed our statement of support for open textbooks.  Over 50 professors right here at the UO!

Read more about the campaign here: http://www.ospirgstudents.org/textbooks

Global Warming Solutions

We are working with our allies at the Sierra Student Coalition, Cascade Climate Network, Environment Oregon, and others to shut down Oregon’s only coal fired plant. Boardman Coal Plant, sited on the Columbia River, is the dirtiest power plant in Oregon. PGE, the utility company that owns Boardman is revising its energy plan for the next 30 years. We have an opportunity to convince them to reorganize energy usage in Oregon and write the Boardman coal plant out of the plan. 

Check out this educational video on the boardman coal plant:

Read more about the campaign here: http://www.ospirgstudents.org/global-warming-solutions

Internships

Giving students an opportunity to earn course credit for the work they are doing with OSPIRG. We teach an intern class once a week to educate and train students on grassroots organizing, running campaigns, working with the media, and much more! You can be an intern for course credit or just for fun!

Fall term Accomplishments

PowerShift West: Here on campus we co-hosted PowerShift West with the Cascade Climate network, Sierra Student Coalition, and many UO campus groups. We brought together over 500 young people from 13 states for the biggest regional PowerShift conference in the country.

Global Warming Solutions: OSPIRG Board Chair Charles Denson was also invited to the White House to join a discussion with members of President Obama's Cabinet about our generation's role in solving global warming. Then Charles went to Copenhagen for the international summit on climate change.

Making Health Care Work: As the national debate rages on we've been working to demonstrate that young people are paying attention and want to be part of the conversation. 95 students attended our Health Care Forum to hear from State Representative Phil Barnhart, OSPIRG Health Care Advocate Laura Etherton, and Professor Qualtere, MD.

Making Higher Education Affordable: We've been making sure our Senators know we need more financial aid in order to make education affordable. We participated in the national Raising Pell Week of Action by getting over 100 people to call their Senators. Across the country 10,000 students called, wrote, emailed, and tweeted their Senators asking them to make this issue a priority.

Riverfront development petition: We worked with the ASUO executive and Senate in opposition to the Riverfront Development project. We were able to gather over 650 petition signatures in just 3 days calling for more student input in the development and planning of our campus.

Voter Registration: We worked with OSA and the ASUO to help students register on campus. We continued this work in Winter to make sure every student had the chance to register for the special election in January, by the registration deadline on January 5^th.