Max Jensen

Photograph of Max Jensen
ASUO Executive: ASUO President (1-Year)
Academic Area
Sociology Major
Planning, Public Policy, and Management Major
My Hometown
Half Moon Bay, California
My Pronouns
He, Him, His
Campaign or Slate you are associated with
UO Student Power

Tell us about yourself.

I'm running for ASUO president with UO Student Power to help students work on the things they're passionate about. I'm currently a ROAR Center Co-director supporting student activists; a former MCC Board Chair; and former LGBTQA3 Events/Finance Coordinator. I helped draft Oregon K-12 Ethnic Studies HB2845 and LCC's Faculty Cultural Competency Policy and I co-founded UO Student Worker's with YDSA, which is the first major undergrad union at a public university.

What are the three key issues that you've noticed on campus that you hope to improve for students as an elected official?

Housing Affordability: I will campaign for public housing through local ballot initiative and contract local tenants unions to protect students from neglectful or abusive landlords and housing administrators.

Cultural Org Autonomy: Cultural orgs are regularly defunded by ASUO for not meeting bureaucratic requirements. We need to build a multicultural council that can equitably allocate ASUO Funds to orgs representing marginalized populations on campus while making organizing easier generally by reducing restrictions on financial requests, travel, printing, and food.

Student Organization Work-Study: Many student leaders are paid an effective stipend of $0.50-$2 per hour. For less money than ASUO spends on one concert, we could pay 200 low-income student leaders $160 per week each.

Why are you running?

ASUO needs to be a tool for students to make the changes they want. As president, I would staff ASUO to engage students who are already passionate about improving our communities and mobilize UO students to vote on local issues that matter for them. One-in-six voting age Eugenians are students at UO. If we build the voting infrastructure, we can build public housing, reduce campus CO2 emissions, and get more control over our institution.