Candidates hope to bring on-site housing, purchase Bookstore

“We have a focus on bettering the campus and that will be tangible change as a direct result of our action,” said ASG presidential candidate Jonathan Beaman about his campaign team platform. Beaman is currently ASG’s director of finance.

Beaman and his vice presidential running mate, Nathan Doering, chairman of the Gay-Straight Alliance who ran for ASG president a year ago, hope to improve Mt. Hood by bringing on-site housing for students, purchasing the Bookstore on behalf of the students and designating smoking areas on campus.

Beaman said students’ needs come first: “It is my duty as their representative president that I fulfill their needs and requests. We are servant leaders. We’re there for them, not over them,” he said.

As for bringing on-site housing to the main Mt. Hood campus, Beaman is connected with a group called College Housing Northwest, a nonprofit organization that builds student housing, he said.

College Housing Northwest is willing to pay 87 percent of the cost of campus housing, said Beaman. “The actual building itself is $22 million; they’re willing to put up $19 million of that, all we need to do is latch (onto) $3 (million).”

“It’s a pretty big draw for domestic students,” he said. “I know a lot of students will choose a university or college just because they have on-site housing, and (will) pay twice as much in tuition.”

Beaman and Doering also hope to purchase the MHCC Bookstore. “The Bookstore – it’s a business,” said Beaman. “I, for one, believe that the bookstore should be student-owned.”

To support the purchase, Beaman said a student fee account would need to be created. “We would keep feeding it money. As soon as (the fund) is enough to purchase the bookstore, we’d do so on behalf of the students,” he said.

The running mates want the smoking ban on campus overturned, and say designated smoking areas is an important goal. Under current rules, “people will drive by our campus and see students who are forced to smoke on the sidewalk or next to the bus stop,” Beaman said.

“That harms us in two ways. One, it doesn’t look particularly good for nonstudents or prospective students; and two, the students who do not smoke usually have to walk through people who are forced to smoke on the sidewalk,” he said.

Community engagement is also something the candidates want to stress. They want to advertise campus events on and off campus so that the surrounding community is more involved, said Beaman. “One of the problems with Mt. Hood in the past was that we couldn’t pass a bond measure (none has passed since 1974) because nobody outside the college really invested in any way.”

Doering is confident in the pair’s campaign platform. “Our ideas are innovative,” he said.

Beaman said some competitors’ ideas for a campaign platform should naturally be present. “I feel like diversity shouldn’t be a platform, it should be inherent… one of the givens. Community engagement, that is not something anybody’s focused on yet, it’s not inherent. We want to make it inherent.”

“We are the legitimate choice,” said Beaman. “I chaired two committees, and my knowledge of our school’s budgeting system — I’m the only person who’s running that has that.

“Good knowledge of (the) senate (experience that Doering has), and more importantly, how to improve senate, and how to keep senate moving, is just invaluable.”